Title: Pater Familias II – Absentia
Author: OneMillionAndNine
http://www.geocities.com/onemillionandnine
Rating: Bare mattress NC-17
Feedback: kokotheuberchimp@hotmail.com
Archive: feel free.
Disclaimer: I like to surf but it'll take more 
than that to make me Chris Carter . That aside, 
I still can't figure out how to turn fan fic 
into a cash cow.
Note: Not A Perfect World was my very first 
attempt at fan fic and when I posted it 
initially I thought it was a complete story. A 
veritable landslide of emails informed me 
otherwise. Three months and 200K later, here 
we are. Be careful what you ask for. That said 
all in all this is a fairly happy shiny story 
though it has its dark spots.
Thanks: All thanks to MaybeAmanda - she asks 
good questions, capitalizes, punctuates, points 
out gaping holes I have missed. If it weren't 
for her, I'd probably never post a thing. And 
now she's set up a website for me {gets down on 
one knee before the whole fic world}
Mandy, will you leave your husband and be my 
bitch?

:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:

What is so wrong with him?  Why couldn't he 
do this right?  Why does he suddenly trust the 
Smoker now that he's apparently dead?  Why 
does it make Scully so angry? 
 
He wanted to protect them, wanted to do what 
was right, but all he seemed to have done over 
the last month was bicker with Scully.  It was 
as if they  had never had sex, almost as if he 
had never been gone, like the baby was driving 
then apart instead drawing then together. Not 
exactly the happy family he'd imagined all 
the times he'd masturbated into a plastic cup 
at her gynecologist's office. {Oooo that's 
right, Mulder, blame the boy - it's clearly all 
the fault of someone whose last major 
achievement was to hold up his own head}. 

It seemed so right at the time, but apparently 
he went too fast, or assumed too much, or 
screwed it all up, somehow.  In retrospect, he 
probably should have waited until he had proven 
himself with the baby.  Or maybe he should have 
given up a long time ago.  He could never 
really earn the right to them.  He had probably 
blown it on a karmic level lifetimes ago.

Maybe if he'd said it differently.  Maybe if 
he'd asked instead of decreed.  Maybe, maybe, 
maybe. 
 
He had tried to stay calm, had rehearsed it to 
himself on the way to pick them up from the 
hospital, but when push came to shove, it still 
wound up coming out something like: 
 
"Scullywe'vegottagoigotatapethesmoker'sdeadI've 
startedgettingeverythingreadywehavetodisapp 
ear!" 
 
To which she'd simply said, "No." 
 
And he, predictably enough, lost his temper. 
 
She didn't exactly shut him out, but after 
that, things definitely took a step backwards.   
Sure, she let him in the door.  Sure, she let 
him hold the baby.  She even accepted a kiss 
on the cheek or the forehead, if it was 
innocuous enough.  But the line between then  
had apparently been redrawn and he had not been 
consulted. 
 
He is trying to fight his way back into her 
good graces - and, if the truth be told, her 
big, soft bed, too - one diaper change and one 
bag of take-out at a time. 

That sounds horrible.  Using the baby to get to 
Scully. He's a horrible person.  Put another 
mark in the why-the-hell-did-they-even-bother-
to-dig-him-up-column.  He *is* one sorry son of 
a bitch.  All hail Bill Scully, a prophet for 
the ages.

He likes the baby.  He really does.  The baby 
is – is nice.  And he smells good.  Mulder just 
wishes he was a little more convenient.  And 
safe. Ideally, back rattling around inside his 
mother's mostly-empty ovary.  Then Mulder 
wouldn't have to worry about the two of them 
getting separated.  That would also obstruct 
his habit of interrupting his father's 
obsessive need for his mother's attention.

He's an asshole and he deserves every bad thing 
that's ever happened.

He loves the baby.

He truly loves the baby.

He just loves Scully more.  

Somehow, he know in his bones that CGB was 
telling the truth.  He just has to prove to her 
how important it is that they disappear before 
he loses everything that matters in the world.

But what to say?  It's his Achilles' Heel and 
he is loathe to tell anyone about it.  Not even 
Scully knows, but there is one big flaw in his 
famous memory:  himself.  He could not remember 
his own words the same way he remembered 
everything else, and he can't figure out what 
he said that made her this incredibly mad.  And 
he doesn't even have work to distract him at 
the moment.  
 
To top it off, he suddenly hates his apartment.  
He'd hate any apartment.  He wants to live with 
Scully, even if it means a bedroom that smells 
like sour Scullymilk and almost hourly 
wrestling with the Diaper Genie.  He wants her 
with him.  He wants to know where she is and 
what she's doing ever minute of the day, 
dammit.

He's a loser and about another three weeks 
away from becoming a genuine stalker.  Jesus, 
if she wanted to she could probably get a 
restraining order.

But he hasn't done anything out of line yet, 
right?  Emphasis on that 'yet'.

Well, at least he still has his couch.

:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:

He has never had a lucid dream before, but it 
just figures it would be something like this.  
No, he couldn't be coherent for a nightmare or 
even one of those meaningful conversation-with- 
his-dead-mother dreams he's been 
having lately. 

Oh, no. 
 
He has a lucid dream about painting his 
fingernails.  Boring.  Vaguely homosexual.  
{Vaguely?  Right.  He'd  just keep telling 
himself that.)  Revlon - Top Speed - One Coat - 
Quick Dry - Mink:  That's what the bottle says.  
The symbolism is disgustingly obvious.  What's 
next, a train in a tunnel?  Jeez, he hates 
Freud. 
 
Funny - just then he notices the hands he's 
painting aren't his.  Well, they're his, but 
not HIS; they belong to the dreamer but they 
are not Fox Mulder's hands.  They are similar, 
though.  He gives it the amateur palm reader's 
once over:  broad, square palm; fairly short 
tapered fingers not unlike his own; high mound 
of Venus denoting a very sensual, nearly 
dissolute nature; almost equally pronounced 
mound of Luna that could either signify a 
tendency toward instability or a love of 
travel; and finally, a strange callous over the 
mound of Mars, probably indicating great 
stubbornness on the part of the dreamer.  Yup, 
could be him. 

Except it's not.  They are too smooth, too 
hairless to be his hands, though the shape is 
right.  Also, there is no callous on the 
trigger finger.  He would like to turn the/his 
hands again, over but he goes on painting them 
until each one is evenly coated.  He realizes 
he is not in control here.  

Then he feels it - a sub-current of thoughts 
and 
feelings definitely not his own.  Suddenly, he 
is nearly overwhelmed by physical sensation, 
though very little is happening and he is 
initiating none of it.  His legs feel amazing.  
They rub together like silk, crossed right at 
the ankle.  He glances down.  Shit, he's 
sporting an amazing set of D cups. 

He's a woman.  Well, that's comfortingly 
Jungian.  A dream from the perspective of the 
Anima:  he can deal with that.

Maybe.

He/she is calculating the fluid weight of the 
liquid polish compared to the area and 
thickness of the dried coat, figuring in the 
minuscule amount of evaporation that must occur 
as he/she blows them dry.  No conscious part of 
his mind works like this.  Does anyone's?  
Well, if his subconscious can do this, why 
can't his conscious mind even balance the 
checkbook?

She counts everything: strokes of polish, 
shakes of the bottle, area of bathroom floor 
space covered by grout.  It is driving him 
crazy in a hurry, but for the anima, there is 
nothing frantic about this - she simply thinks 
in numbers and operations, gets a small 
pleasure from discerning the square roots of 
each of the numbers she comes up with, then 
turning them around and doing it again. 
 
He/she feels a strange, achy, wet feeling, 
almost like some kind of stomach distress, like 
too many rides on the Tilt-a-Whirl, only lower. 

Shit.  Is this what female arousal feels like? 

The wetness descends and he/she can feel their 
pulse between his/her legs.  Her nipples stand 
out like little soldiers, brown and the size of 
three fat gum drops stacked one on top of the 
other.  Now he knows she's his anima because 
she looks like she came straight out of his 
video collection.  Well, her tits do anyway. 
 
Make-up time.  Does she have a date, this 
female self of his?  Please let her be a 
lesbian.

Well, at least he'll get to see her face.  
Surprise, surprise - she kind of looks like 
him.  Surprise, surprise - she's not white.  
Not surprising, really - in a Caucasian's dream 
world, a dark-skinned person usually represents 
the id, or the dreamer's "dark " desires.  So 
this must be his feminine self who also happens 
to be involved somehow with certain urges that 
are uncomfortable enough that he fails to 
recognize them consciously. 
 
Okay, study closely, Fox.  She's not black, 
she's - what?  Hispanic?  Asian?  Pacific 
Islander?  Native American maybe?  He just 
can't tell.  Her hair is straight black in a 
Betty Page sort of a do.  Her general face 
shape is a lot like his; broad, big jaw, 
slightly cleft chin, higher cheeks, though.  
Her lips are big, just more even than his.  
Eyes glittery black, but slightly more slanted 
in her face than his.  Nose?  Smaller, but not 
small.  Most likely Hispanic he decides.  If he 
had to describe her, he'd say 'a strange and 
pleasing combination of Tia Carrerra and Minnie 
Driver.'  Actually, kind of Xena Warrior 
Princess-ish, only gold skinned, the 
overwhelming effect being one of cute.  She's 
cute.  Baby faced and pretty, but too 
cartoonish to be really beautiful.  As opposed 
to, say, Scully, who is never cute but often 
gut wrenchingly beautiful.

Okay, the make-up is done now. She/he runs 
her/his hands over her/his breasts and his/her 
heart pounds as they turn the corner out of the 
bathroom. She/he is the opposite of Scully in 
some other ways too.  Long legs and wide hips, 
insanely large, round tits.  She could put 
somebody's eye out with those things. 
Cartoonishly sexy.  As soon as he wakes up, 
he's taking  all those vintage issues of Heavy 
Metal back to Frohike. 
 
Shit.  There is a naked man on the bed.  Shit 
shit shit!  He is not gay.  He is not gay.  He 
is not homophobic, either,  but he is not 
gay.  Nonetheless, there is a naked man on the 
bed.  With an erection, no less.  And she is 
aroused - man, is she aroused.  The numbers in 
her head are dancing in equations he has no 
hope at following.  He is terrified.

She does a little shimmy around the bedroom for 
this man on the bed.  She thinks it's silly but 
she knows he loves it, so she does it.  She's 
so very turned on by him she can afford to feel 
a little silly.  He looks familiar.  She thinks 
a word: 'gorgeous.'  That's what he is to her.  
His wavy hair is golden, but she thinks 'amber 
waves of grain.'  Even so, he won't mock her.  
Once, on a long drive, he took a look at Scully 
and thought 'filled full with life to the hair 
and teeth as the rose is fulfilled to the rose 
leaf tips with splendid summer and perfume and 
pride', so he has no room to.  To tell the 
truth, every time he sees Scully healthy and 
laughing, really laughing, he thinks it again.  
And once you quote Swinburn, even in your own 
head, you lose all right to mock. 
 
Meanwhile, she/he is sliding between his legs.  
NONONO NOT A BLOW JOB!  PLEASE!

For what it's worth, she doesn't even slow 
down.  His hairy legs are vaguely ticklish 
against his/her skin, and she/he brushes 
his/her lips softly over his cock.  He, Fox 
Mulder, is starting to get turned on.  She's 
really good at this.  She could go 
professional, or to the Olympics, maybe.  He 
wishes he was on the receiving end of this 
instead of, um, where ever he is.  Shit.  He's 
not huge, just proportionate, much taller and 
broader than Fox, and his penis is matched to 
the rest of him, fits him.  Fox on the other 
hand, looks slightly goofy with a hard-on - 
Phoebe said it made the rest of him look small.  
Anyway, this guy, he is perfect, like all the 
other men in the world are doing it wrong.  
That's what she thinks, too, his Anima.  

And suddenly the FBI man recognizes him.  He 
works, or rather, worked at the Bureau.  
Killed less than a year ago.  SAC Jean Mercy, 
hostage negotiator and all-around great guy, 
at least that's what he's heard.  Why him?

And who'd imagine Fox's anima could deep 
throat?  He can't decide whether to be 
horrified or impressed.  His balls pressing 
her/his chin.  She is loving it - the wetness 
of her own mouth, the silky feeling of his 
cock, the sweet musky smell (he thinks, at 
first, it is some kind of cologne, but she 
knows this, knows it's his arousal), the low 
moans escaping from him.

What could this possibly mean?  He's a girl 
(she doesn't look a minute over 22) who looks 
like she came out of a comic book, giving 
head to a dead SAC? 
 
Right now, however, the dead SAC seems rather 
lively.  They are being pulled up on top of him 
and it only takes a split second to be 
penetrated.  Jesus!!!!!! They are shaking from 
the second he slips in.  Is this what a woman's 
orgasm feels like?  He can't imagine he has 
ever made anyone feel like this.  Christ!  
Shouldn't she need some foreplay?  There is an 
insane buzzing that covers their skin until 
their teeth chatter.

His hands are huge - he means huge.  People say 
that all the time, but now it is really 
applicable.  His paws on their ass, squeezing, 
lifting in time with his hips.  The vibration 
dies down to just a crazy buzz again and their 
rhythm picks up again - one - two - three 
thrusts, and it's too much.  Their breasts 
pound against his face.  They stutter.  How 
long can this go on?  It's inhuman?  Shove - 
two - three - four - five -- they feel a 
strange cold in the soles of their feet as they 
come again, twitching like an epileptic.  This 
is going to last forever.  Does he have a 
fever?  It feels like he does.  His lips are so 
soft, his hands pressing their face to his.  He 
has to hold them there; all they want to do is 
ride, ride, ride, ride.  Mink nails dig into 
his chest, and they come again.  Every time 
feels harder than the last, but that hardly 
seems possible.  Each orgasm never really ends, 
just slows into a hum before rising into the 
next - again, again, again.  They want to cry.  

Unfair.  He's being unfair as he throws them 
off, positioning them on their hands and 
knees like a doll.  Omigod.  From behind?  
There is a painful jolt that only serves to 
make it better, as he hits - what?  Oh, 
the cervix.  They have a cervix.  

She thinks his fists are like hams, cured hams, 
strumming their clitoris.  Again, again, again 
they come.  His balls bounce against them and 
it is delicious.  There is nothing better than 
this.  

They can't stay down.  They rear up against 
him, his chest against their back, one of his 
arms wrapped across them, clutching their 
opposite breast, as if he needs to hold them 
up.  Their ears are ringing as they come again. 
A little death - this one really lives up to 
the name.  By the time it's over, they chant 
'fuck fuck fuck fuck' like a mantra, and clutch 
at their own breasts till it must bruise, and 
afterwards he's still, and there is no more 
buzzing.  Like a crypt.

What he does next feels so rough, brutish.  He 
pulls away, flips them easily onto their back, 
dives in.  Fox can't see why, but she is 
smiling up at him.  "Fuck me, Jean.  Fuck me."  
It's strange now, like the connection is lost, 
even though he is up there, pounding away.  
Something is missing, now.  It's just his hard 
cock moving against them.  She's waiting for 
him to come, trying to help, him along.  They 
tense their muscles, flex/release, feeling 
every vein and ridge of him as they 
squeeze/flex/release.  He has yet to break a 
Sweat, but they are smelly and sticky.  It is 
becoming incredible to have him on top of them.  
Something so sweet about his smell and his size 
and the moisture of his lips.  Not sexual so 
much as comforting.  They struggle to have one 
last tentative orgasm, hoping to encourage him.  
He is smiling 
 
"Come on, come on."  His voice is so low they 
shut their eyes in concentration. 
 
"Tell me you love me," says a completely 
different voice, a voice he knows too well.  
Suddenly the man above them has turned into 
Walter Skinner.  

Their heart races.  He is screaming.  Shit! 
Shit! Shit!  She is having a full-blown anxiety 
attack.  They actually just puked in the bed 
and the worst part is, they were both turned 
on. 

It had been a long time, and he was still in no 
real shape for it, but he had almost decided 
that his only real choice was a run when the 
phone went off.  There was no way to avoid 
answering it, since it was bound to be some 
sort of emergency at that hour.  Nonetheless, 
he waited till the caller ID lit up.  His mouth 
dropped when he saw that the name on the 
display 
belonged to an FBI agent some eight months 
dead:  Jean-Guy Mercy. 
 
He was wondering what the correct 
greeting for a call from a ghost you just 
dreamed of fucking was.  Could you look it up 
in Emily Post?  "Yeah?" 
 
Skinner's voice was a profound disappointment, 
and a shock rang his head.  "Mulder? That you?"  
 
"Far as I can tell." 
 
"I need to ask for your help on a personal 
matter. 
 
"Fire away." 
 
"Not over the phone - there's a 24 hour 
Hagen Daz store near the park where you like to 
run.  Can you meet me there in 45 minutes?" 
 
"Soon as I call Scully, Sir" 
 
"She's already on her way."  And the 
call ended as abruptly as it had begun.

:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:

It took him ten minutes to get to the ice cream 
shop.  The girl behind the counter had a 
tattooed tear and rolled her eyes when he asked 
if she knew Henry Rollins had once managed this 
very store. He went with a banana split and 
tried to recall everything he ever heard about 
the dead agent whose home Skinner had 
called him from. 
  
Jean-Guy Mercy was as much a bureau legend as 
Spooky Mulder, which made his task 
easier in that people talked about him more 
than if he'd been some run-of-the-mill Joe 
Fibbie.  On the other hand, that also meant not 
all of the things he'd heard were true.  He 
knew with certainty that Mercy had died at 47, 
was married, with one child, and was 
undisputedly the top hostage negotiator in the 
bureau.  All the rest was suspect.  
 
Word had it he was the one success story to 
come out of the Baltimore foster care system, 
the child of a white prostitute and her Haitian 
pimp.  Rumor also had it that the father had 
stabbed the mother to death when Mercy was 11. 
He had an older sister who was either severely 
disturbed or retarded but, in any event, lived 
in a halfway house somewhere in the DC area.  
Jean Mercy was also rumored to hate sports with 
a passion. 
 
There was also enough of an age difference 
between he and his wife that Mulder, as out of 
the loop as he was, had heard about it.  The 
wife was generally considered "hot but 
unfriendly," which explained the fact that, 
while he had occasionally seen Mercy at the odd 
unavoidable FBI function, he was not aware that 
he had ever seen his wife.  
 
He conjured up the image of Jean-Guy Mercy; he 
was a large man, both taller and heavier than 
Skinner, who wore his cheap suit in a way that, 
at the time, made Mulder feel like he was 
trying 
too hard.  Mercy was not in the best shape, and 
a small paunch hung over his belt, but his 
upper body was massive.  His golden hair combed 
back so that it fell in row upon row of finger- 
sized waves that stopped at his nape. 
 
Mulder wondered, suddenly, why it had never 
occurred to him before.  He and Mercy were a 
perfect dichotomy.  Where "Spooky" was treated 
with contempt, Mercy was idolized.  Where 
"Spooky" was inevitably at the bottom of the 
FBI dog pile, if not in rank, at least in 
personal dominance, Mercy could out Alpha Male 
Walter Skinner.  Where Mulder was 'Old Money,' 
Mercy had grown up in the kind of poverty few 
people manage to struggle out of.  Physically 
they were diametrically opposed, even their 
faces.  He had always considered his own face 
to be rather goofy, comedic.  But Jean Mercy's 
face was regal, leonine, and the reason that, 
despite his violet blue eyes, cheerfully pink 
skin, and blond hair, no one ever mistook him 
for white.  If you had stood them side by side, 
Fox Mulder was darker in every possible way, 
but still unfailingly white. 
 
Once Scully had mentioned in passing that she 
knew him.  No, she mentioned that she knew his 
wife.  Ahhhhh, the wife.  He didn't know 
why it hadn't occurred to him off the bat: if 
Skinner had called him from Mercy's house at 4 
a.m., it was entirely probable that whatever 
had happened, had happened while Skinner spent 
the night with the young widow.  Now that was 
an interesting thought. 
 
His reverie was disturbed by a tiny voice.  "I 
want my mama," followed by Skinner's, "We're 
gonna find her, Junior," and the unmistakable 
cooing sounds of Scully comforting a distressed 
child. 
 
What was Scully doing, leaving the baby? 
"Scully, where's the baby?" 
 
"With the guys." 
 
"You left my son with Larry, Curly, and Moe?" 

"It's alright; my son's there, too"  She gave 
him the classic don't-push-me glare.  
 
They slid into the booth with him.  Skinner 
wordlessly passed him a note from his coat 
pocket.  It was written on Skinner's office 
stationary in a terrible scrawl. 



Walt, 
 
I guess you're figuring out about now the 
family business is bullshit.  I'm not coming 
back.  Sorry about this.  I hope you believe me 
when I tell you I wish things were different, 
but I can't just play into his hands by 
continuing the way things are.  After the video 
from my father, I knew that Junior would never 
be safe as long as he's with me, and neither 
would you.  Take care of my boy.  Try not to 
think too badly of me.  This new baby probably 
isn't even yours, anyway.  Probably just 
another Frankenstein.  

I have never understood the difference between 
love and the deepest friendship.  I honestly 
don't give two shits about the sum being 
greater than the parts, when the parts are 
enough for me but since I know it means 
something to you, I love you, Dickhead. 
 
Don't come after me.  I can't be helped. 
 
Betty 



On the bottom was a fairly well-drawn portrait 
of Boris Karloff. 
 
"I found this about an hour before I called 
you." 
 
"What more can you tell me?  Who's her father?" 
 
"It seems that CGB Spender has been pretty 
busy," Scully said, the corner of her mouth 
twisting. 
 
"Or so he claims." Mulder was mirthless. 
 
"I also know where she went."  Skinner's 
movements were leaden.  "Look, Mulder, I'm 
pretty sure she has information that can help 
explain the medical procedures done to the 
women in the project - and Gibson Praise.  
She's panicked that she is being used for some 
sort of breeding program and - and I need you 
to bring her home" 
 
"Sir, we can't bring her back against her 
will."  Scully was trying to be gentle. 
 
"It's not that I'm not willing, Sir, but..." 
Mulder stopped mid-sentence and spooned an 
unnaturally large bite of ice cream into his 
mouth. 
 
"She also seems to be under the impression that 
the two of you are related.  Any chance that 
it's true, Mulder?" 
 
He pursed his lips and nodded. 
 
"We don't know for sure, Sir.  We haven't had a 
DNA sample to run a comparison with." 
 
"Does Hallmark make a card for that?"  Mulder 
was savoring the last of his ice cream, 
scraping the chocolate syrup out of the edges 
of the plastic dish.  "'Is it true you're my 
dad, you black lunged Old Thug?'" 
 
"The question is, will you go?"  Skinner 
was running his hands over the top of the boy's 
curly head while Mulder did his best not to 
stare openly, searching the child for some sort 
of answer.  The boy's lower lip stiffened 
despite the perpetual pout that made Mulder 
inspect his clear plastic spoon at the 
familiarity of the feature.  When he finally 
looked up, the large round eyes that met his 
were in the midst of shifting from moss green 
to amber. 
 
"Sir, regardless of what decision Mulder 
makes, I would like to offer my help in this.  
I'd like to go.  You did the same for me when 
Mulder was missing." 
 
"That isn't necessary, Scully, I don't 
want...Your son needs you."  Skinner shook his 
head slowly. 
 
"Like Betty's son needs her?"  She laid her 
hand on Skinner's arm. 
 
"You've just had a baby."  Skinner might have 
said the words, but Mulder agreed silently, 
thought them as they came out of the AD's 
mouth. 
 
"I had a baby a month ago," she eyed them both.  
"You know Nancy Flood, the jailor downtown?  
She was back at work three days after she had 
her daughter." 

"And you feel okay with leaving him with the 
guys?"  Mulder asked with practiced casualness, 
scraping at his ice cream dish, despite its 
conspicuous emptiness. 
 
"They're kind, trustworthy, and the most 
paranoid people I know.  He's probably safer 
with them than he is at home."  She shrugged, 
her narrowed eyes as intent and focused as her 
body was seemingly relaxed.

He smirked inwardly, knowing the gesture was 
Scullyese for "I hate to do it, but there's no 
way I'm letting you do this alone."  There was 
no way she'd give him that much power.  It was 
a realization he'd had about three days 
earlier: it wasn't exactly that she didn't 
trust him , she'd just had so much power 
wrested from her in the past nine years she was 
terrified to loosen her grip on what was left.

"What about your mom ?"  He looked up at her 
shyly. 
 
"My mother comes from a different generation, 
with some different ideas about childrearing."  
She suppressed a smile while Mulder felt his  
eyebrows shoot toward his hairline.  "She let's 
him cry too long." 
 
Mulder nodded.  Now that he considered it, 
Scully never let the baby fuss for an instant 
longer than she had to.  And, as in all things, 
Frohike and friends would follow her 
instructions to the letter: they might idolize 
him, but they were simply terrified of her.

"Sure, we'll both go.  Anything to get out of 
the house, huh, Scully?"  He tried to force a 
smile. 
 
"Your plane for Dallas leaves in two hours. 
This is strictly non-bureau."  Walter Skinner 
looked like he was battling nausea.  "They 
don't exactly think we're the good guys down 
there." 
 
"Good thing, since I'm still officially dead 
and Scully's still on leave.  Besides, I 
thought Texans loved the Feds." 
 
"They do, but you're going to rural Oklahoma.   
And thanks...from both of us."  The boy 
nodded in silent agreement. 
 
Mulder looked down at the mother of his child 
and noticed the front of her shirt was soaked.  
He tried to draw her attention the way he used 
to with the nosebleeds, and felt ridiculous 
gesturing to his own nipples. 

Finally, after entirely too much throat-
clearing, she looked down.  
 
It was at that perfect moment that a photo slid 
out of the file in Scully's hand.  A photo of 
Mulder's anima, who also happened to be the
Widow Mercy. 
 
Shit shit shit. 
 

:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:


His inner monologue had become so intense that 
the outside world was merely humming, mosquito- 
like, in his periphery.  An hour into the 
flight, he finally composed himself to the 
point of being able to speak more than four 
words in succession.  At some point, he decided 
to interrogate Scully.  Not in a bad way, of 
course, but he knew people tended to recall 
things more effectively when asked appropriate 
questions in an appropriate manner.  He wanted 
Scully to remember Elizabeth Mercy. 
 
"So what's she like?" 
 
"It's been years," she sighed. 
 
"But you were friends at Georgetown, right?" 
 
"I wouldn't say we were friends exactly.  We 
were in the same department, but to tell you 
the truth, she made me uncomfortable." 
 
"What was it about her that bothered you?" 
 
"I was young, Mulder, and she was..."

"Spill it, Scully." 
 
"You read her files." 
 
He had indeed, and there was an element of 
aching familiarity in the information Skinner 
had hastily put together.  The woman who could 
be his sister was born in 1970 in the state 
mental hospital, to a 35 year old Native 
American woman with a history of alleged 
abductions, who had, by all accounts, had a 
hysterectomy fifteen years earlier.  The infant 
was handed over to her maternal grandparents at 
birth.  Then followed a 12 year bureaucratic 
gap - no documentation whatsoever - until a 
twelve year old girl named Elizabeth Myrtle 
Roguebull enrolled at Georgetown.  At nineteen, 
she received her doctorate in Physics, and 
married a thirty seven year old FBI agent.  

After that, she went on to a noteworthy career. 
A celebrity among her peers; respected, but not 
exactly beloved - not unlike himself in his 
profiling days.  In 1995, she had given birth 
to a son.  None of it told him much about her, 
not in the way he wanted. 
 
"What was she like in school?"  He spoke 
quietly and he knew she couldn't resist him 
much longer. 
 
"A veritable cat in a bag.  Let's see, she was 
brilliant.  She was overbearing.  She was 
disorganized.  She was promiscuous.  She wore 
flannel shirts and too much perfume.  She liked 
to play practical jokes.  That's about the 
extent of my knowledge." 
 
He smiled  "Practical jokes?" 
 
"Ran the gamut from fireworks in the 
department bathrooms to taking out personal ads 
in the professor's names.  I haven't seen her 
since her wedding.  People can change a lot in 
11 years."  Scully made a gesture that 
indicated he should know exactly what she 
meant, but he wasn't sure. 
 
"You went to her wedding?" 
 
"I was a bridesmaid, actually.  She didn't know 
a lot of women and Jack Willis was one of 
Mercy's groomsmen, so I got drafted.  I think 
Jack was afraid he was going to have to escort 
the maid of honor." 
 
"She had a great personality, huh?" 
 
"No.  She was a guy named Pete." 
 
"So, Scully, were the dresses ugly?" 
 
"Surprisingly, no.  Let's see, they were off 
the shoulder, knee length, silver satin.  I 
still have it, actually.  I think I 
wore it to the bureau Christmas party once." 
 
"You know I never go to those." 
 
"I think you've seen it in my closet." 
 
He knew exactly the dress she meant. "Somehow, 
I doubt Pete looked as good in it as you did." 
 
"I have a lot of regrets when I think back 
about her.  We were pretty much the only women 
in the physics department.  I mean, she 
didn't exactly. . .in retrospect, I realize she 
was a lonely, frightened adolescent, but at the 
time, I took her at face value and found her, 
well, strange and off-putting." 
 
It was unusual for him to see her struggle for 
words.  And the idea of Scully being 
intimidated was surreal.  The whole thing was 
weird.  A sister he didn't want, who was 
apparently more fucked-up than he was, if such 
a thing were possible.  Is that how Scully 
would feel about him if she hadn't been forced 
to get to know him better?  Weird, off-putting, 
over bearing, over the top?  

He had wanted to let it go and tell Skinner to 
tilt at his own windmills - Mulder had had a 
belly full of the Don Quixote act and would 
like nothing more than to settle down to a 
quiet life of little league and chasing 
poltergeists and bloodsucking freaks with the 
girl of his dreams.

Despite this, he had failed to tell Skinner to 
take a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut, and 
he had failed because of two important design 
flaws in Fox William Mulder. Scully had once 
described them as defining characteristics; 
curiosity and guilt.  If he wasn't guilty and 
he wasn't curious, he wasn't Fox Mulder.  So 
perhaps it was simple delusion to imagine there 
was some way NOT to go to Oklahoma, some way 
not to beat this ugly pi๑ata till the sick and 
sordid story fell out. 

He had wanted to work things out; the stupid 
un-nightmare, whatever was happening 
with Scully, why Scully had let him do 
what he'd done.  Touch her like that?  He kept 
feeling her breasts in his hands like a pair 
of phantom limbs. The baby.  Fatherhood.

He wished he could hang his head out of the 
window of the plane.  He didn't need anymore 
fucking family tragedies right now.  

It took everything he had not to shiver. 

:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~: 

It had been an incredibly long day. 

Sure, Scully had managed to catch some sleep in 
the car, but being as she'd gotten up 21 hours 
earlier and traveled half way across the 
country before breakfast, not to mention having 
spent the rest of the day in fruitless pursuit 
of Betty Roguebull, she felt her inalienable 
right to a lumpy hotel mattress had been 
breached.  She wished rental cars were equipped 
with Magic Fingers, not for the first time. 

Here she was in rural Oklahoma with the man who 
could get lost in a shopping mall, following 
vague directions to the "49" {whatever the hell 
that was} that included phrases like, "turn 
about a quarter mile past the field with the 
two red dogs and the rusted-out water heater" 
and "if you see a wrecked bus with 'HEAVEN' 
painted on the side, you've gone too far." 
She'd like to go back to sleep for awhile, but 
she was afraid if she did she'd wake up in 
Arizona.  Mulder was managing to be both tense 
and humorless. 

Charming.  It was charming. 

Sister or no, Betty undoubtedly held a big 
piece of the Consortium puzzle.  They'd gone 
much farther for much smaller crumbs of 
evidence, but somehow, without the mantle of 
government authority, Scully felt unreasonably 
vulnerable.  It was almost as if they were 
undercover as themselves.  Well, so be it.  If 
it was important to the safety of her baby, and 
she felt certain it was, that was all that 
mattered. 

Then she heard the music on the wind.  At first 
it sounded like snatches of the traditional 
Native American music she had heard on vacation 
at the Grand Canyon as a child, until she 
realized it had a weird resonant metallic sound 
to the drum.  It was slower.  Then she began to 
recognize the words.  English.

    My Sweetheart,
    She Don't Love Me Anymore 
    Because I Drink Whiskey
    I Don't Care I got Another One 
    She's Got Another One Too 
    She Can Do Whatever She Can Do 
    I Can Do What I Want Too 
    I Don't Care, I Got Another One 

"Well, that's a lovely sentiment." 

"Huh?" 

"Stop the car, Mulder.  We're there.  Hear the 
music?" 

Looking ahead she could see a small cluster of 
men were using the hood of an engineless car as 
a drum.  What she had from the distance taken 
for a deserted shack now seemed to be teeming 
with people.  Not in quite the way every party 
she had ever seen - indoor or out - teemed with 
people, but in ones, twos, and threes, ambling 
slowly over the dark, treeless plain.  A few 
more clustered around a large, orange fire.  
The yellow grass was sprinkled with restless, 
wiggling sleeping bags and blankets.  Scully 
estimated there were some 65 - 70 people 
present, not counting who ever was in the dim 
little house.  Then the side windows went 
black. 

A wall of human flesh loomed over Mulder's side 
of the car and he prayed to fate that there was 
not yet another ass-kicking in his immediate 
future.  He craned his head out the window. 

"Hi!"  He tried smiling winningly and just felt 
very out of place. 

Mr. Wall-O-Meat spoke.  "You folks lost?" 

"I hope not.  My name's Fox Mulder and I'm 
looking for my sister.  Someone said I could 
find her here." 

"Your sister?"  The Wall looked suspicious. 

"Elizabeth Roguebull." 

"Thought you were Feds.  Sorry."  The Wall 
scrutinized his face.  "If that's true, we're 
kin.  Come on up to the house - I think she's 
in there."  With amazing agility, he turned to 
Scully, who had hopped out of the car.  "What's 
your name?" 

"Dana, Dana Scully." 

A rumble started low in his chest before 
tumbling out of his mouth.  If rocks laughed, 
it would sound like that.  "Dana Scully, I'm 
Dana HoneyEater."  He extended a hand so large 
it seemed surreal.  Mulder's eyebrows tried to 
migrate to his hairline as the two of them 
shook heartily, smiling. 

Suddenly a pair of men only slightly smaller 
than Dana The Larger flanked them. 

"Everything okay here?" asked the one standing 
closer.  They were dark, almost black and the 
wind whipped their waist length hair in 
circles. 

"This is Fox - says he's Betty's brother." 

"That piece of shit your dad, too?"

Mulder realized the men were identical and he 
nodded, chagrined. "My mother, she was married 
to someone else.  I lost her about a year ago.  
I didn't even know about Betty until a few days 
ago.  I'm still not one hundred per cent." 

The three men looked at him in open appraisal.  
He was expecting some profound pronouncement, 
but instead he got a trio of nods. 

"Y'all sit by the fire.  I'll go get Betty," 
and one of the twins was gone. 

"Well Dana, I got Old Crow, Boones Farm and 
some Malt Liquor...what you want?  They got bud 
in the house if you want to wait for Gene to 
come back." 

Mulder was mildly surprised when she chose the 
whiskey, somehow having figured her for the 
sweet wine type. 

"Fox?" 

"I think I'll wait for the bud." 

Scully immediately knew Mulder had 
misunderstood and was intensely curious as to 
whether her partner would actually end up 
smoking marijuana.  Yup, Mulder could 
commit three B&E's in one week, and more police 
brutality than you could shake a stick at, but 
she knew some little cop part of his brain 
would balk at smoking a joint.  She took a 
medium-sized swallow from the mouth of the 
bottle and passed it back to the other Dana.  

She took another, longer pull from the bottle. 
It was funny that such a loose cannon was so 
prissy about certain things.  Of course, he 
would deny everything.  The bottle came back at 
her again.  He wasn't breaking or entering 
{What Scully? Did you want the bad guys to get 
away?}  And if he got a little over-excited 
during an interrogation or a collar, well, just 
look at what the perp had done to those poor 
defenseless women/children/rectumless cattle. 

"So, where you from, Fox?" 

"Massachusetts." 

"Boston?" 

"Nope, Chillmark.  Little tiny place." 

Scully felt pissed that he had suddenly turned 
into Gary Cooper. 

"Martha's Vineyard.  He's from Martha's 
Vineyard."  She didn't even know she was saying 
it aloud until her irritation got the better of 
her. 

"Like the Kennedys?" Dana's eyes widened.  
"Shit." 

And everyone stared at the fire. 

"Chillmark is the town on the island."  Mulder 
sounded sheepish. "The Kennedy's just vacation 
there, anyway." 

"I guess everybody's gotta be from somewhere." 

Dana tried to give Mulder the benefit of the 
doubt.  "Ya'll gonna be here long?" 

"Well, Dana," Mulder slipped his arm around 
Scully. "Just a couple of days.  We have a new 
baby at home." 

Was she suddenly his girlfriend, now?  Nice of 
him to let her know.  Yes, she was thrilled 
that he thought enough of her to state his 
intentions explicitly, and not leave her 
guessing.  And just when she was getting used 
to his respectful and resentful no-closer-or-
farther-than-four-feet act at her apartment 
everyday, too.  Oh well, she was a trained FBI 
agent:  she could adapt. 

"Whadda ya do, Dana?" 

"I'm a pathologist." 

"Like Quincy?"  His head cocked. 

Scully chuckled.  "Pretty much." 

"But she's waaaay hotter than Jack Klugman," 
Mulder informed him.  "And I'm the most fucked- 
up psychologist you're ever gonna meet." 

So far it looked like he was sticking to his 
plan of telling the truth except for when he 
knew it would get his ass kicked.  The 
admission earned him a smile and sideways look 
from Scully. 

Gene ran up laughing.  "Betty says she wants to 
see him but she's too stoned to move." 

:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:

The air was so thick with marijuana smoke that 
both agents gasped as they entered the house.  

"Betty Roguebull?"   Mulder called out in a 
voice so like an FBI agent addressing a suspect 
that Scully had trouble maintaining her 
composure.  

A voice came from the floor.  "Spooky Mulder, I 
presume?"  Betty was flat on her back, her eyes 
reduced to slits.  "I am soooo high." 

As soon as he finished gulping down his fear, 
he continued, crouching down beside her the way 
Scully had often seen him do with children.  
"is your father CGB Spender?"  

"As far as I know, Frankenstein.  But then 
again, he is one lying sack of shit."  she 
propped herself up on one elbow smiling.  "He 
said you were his, too, but like I said.  .  ."  

Mulder nodded. "He's a lying sack of shit."  

Scully was uncomfortable for a period of time 
where they stared openly, as if a long, hard 
look into each other's faces could reveal the 
truth.  Then she saw something in their faces 
close off and, although they continued to study 
one another, she saw the wheels in each head 
begin to turn.  As if through mutual agreement, 
it seemed they decided they could reason their 
way there, instead.  She supposed it was her 
job to state the obvious.  "All you need is a 
DNA analysis.  I took the liberty of sending  
some hair from your brush to some friends of 
ours before we left DC."  

"Hey Dana, I'd say long time no see, but I'm 
not wearing my glasses.  Sure.  Sure you don't 
need a tissue sample for this?  Shit, hack off 
my leg baaaaaaaaby"  Betty was doing her best 
Big Bopper imitation, which wasn't very good.  

'Same old Betty,' Scully thought as she glanced
over her with microscopic carelessness.  Ten or 
so pounds heavier, but it only seemed to add to 
her inherent look of sexual ripeness.  

Mulder lurched back from his first sight of
her as if seared, stiffened as if afraid of 
slipping onto the floor beside her.

If not on top of her, Scully thought wryly.  
The idea sickened and depressed her, and in 
some part of her consciousness, she knew it was
beneath her, beneath all of them.  She looked 
at the two of them and felt it with the gut 
response she would vehemently deny having.  She 
knew he felt it too, and he wouldn't even 
bother to question it now that he'd seen her.  
The jaw ,the long graceful limbs, above all the 
eyes.  Not a common feature, yet reproduced 
before them stunningly.  Betty was 
unquestionably his sister. 

Scully brushed the back of her hand against his 
side, and like a puppet, he turned to her.  
Yup.  She could knock Miss Tits-and-Ass right 
out of his head.  Some things were immutable, 
she hoped.

Though it was hard to see in the dark and the 
smokiness, there was a heavy narcissistic 
quality when the two of them stared in to one 
another's eyes.  

Ugly.  Very ugly.  She could have come off a 
video box.  Her smooth skin managed to be both 
golden and rosy.  Her glossy black hair fanned 
out in waves over the floor.  He wondered, did 
Scully feel like this when she looked at his 
lips?  It was all he could do not to snarl at 
her.  

"Walter wants you to come back."  There was an 
edge he hadn't intended in his voice.  

"Tell Walt-" she giggled,"-tell Walt to want in 
one hand and shit in the other and see which 
fills up first.  Can you remember to tell him 
that...Bro?"  she emphasized the last word 
the way Mulder himself would have.

"I have an eidetic memory."  

"Trying to impress me, Frankenstein?"  She 
laughed and her breasts jiggled in a way that 
was maddening.  He couldn't stop himself from 
trying to guess whether she was a D or DD.  
Maybe if he held them in his hands. . .

Scully watched his fists clench and relax.

At some point, he realized the only effective 
way to drive her out of that corner of his 
psyche was to picture Scully in all those ways 
he was used to fighting desperately.  He was 
right; he moved his head just far enough to the 
left to catch Scully's milk-heavy breasts from 
the corner of his eye.  Betty was gorgeous, but 
no match for the redhead.  

She passed him a joint bigger than any he'd 
seen at Oxford.  He must have already been 
suffering a contact high because all he could 
think to do was to put it to his lips and 
inhale.  Fire filled his lungs and throat and 
his head was rapidly floating away.  

He expected Scully to scream or slap him but 
all she did was give him a bemused look.  "Why 
do you keep callin' me that?"   

"Would you prefer Rocky?  'Come up to the lab 
and see what's on the slab!'"  

"What?"

Scully saw that he was truly clueless, but she 
was starting to have a sickening suspicion, so 
she leaned in closer.  

Elizabeth moved forward until the three of them 
were disturbingly close.  "Are you saying, Fox, 
old boy, that you have no idea?"  

Beetle browed, he shook his head  slowly  

Betty leaned back and made a noise that was 
very close to a bark.  "Okay.  Let us review 
the facts of Fox Mulder and see if we can gain 
anything from it.  Remember Socrates, boyo?  
The unexamined life is no better than a bullet 
in the brain.  One: Ever read any Oliver Sachs?  
Eidetic memory - You know that particular 
feature is nearly unheard of in functional 
adults.  Most people with eidetic memories 
display their uncommon recall along side mental 
retardation or at least severe dysfunction such 
as autism or debilitating brain lesions.  Two:  
IQ of what?  170?"  

"174."  

"Okay, 174 it is.  Puts you in the top point 
one percent.  Three: I'll bet you have uncommon 
hand eye co-ordination and great gross motor 
skills as well, when, for most mortals, it's 
either one or the other.   Four: you heal 
remarkably well.  How many times have you been 
shot, stabbed, knocked unconscious?  A normal 
person would be a complete physical wreck after 
half the things you've been through.  Five: 
You're aging very well.  Pushing forty, right?  
How many forty year olds have musculature like 
that?  And your skin still very elastic despite 
persistent over-exposure to excessive UV.  Six: 
accelerated development.  I'll bet money you 
said your first words at around six months, as 
soon as your larynx dropped into place.  You 
also walked at what 8?  9 months?  And you 
went through puberty painfully early, right? 
First pubic hair on the block, right?  And 
you're emotionally different from other people, 
too.  You have a heightened need for stimuli, a 
heightened sex drive.  Your hearing drives you 
crazy at night, so you sleep with the TV on, 
but you don't sleep much.  Don't need to.  You 
think you just won some kind of genetic 
lottery, Bro?  Nobody lucks out like that."  

He was slack-jawed.  "What are you saying?" 

"Knowing our shallow daddy dearest, I'm 
guessing you're hung like a donkey.  Am I 
right?  Or am I right?  Consider yourself lucky 
I got fucking tits by Mattel.  My back is so 
fucked-up, but they didn't even think about 
that.  Apparently, a connoisseur of subtle 
beauty he ain't.  Looking like this is not 
exactly a boon in the field of physics but that 
might be my fault; maybe I should have been a 
stripper." 

Scully was staring at her partner like she had 
never seen him before.  It all made so much 
sense, fit so perfectly.  She'd just been too 
close to recognize it.  

He was both puzzled and angry, as if she was 
toying with him in someway.  "Spell it out for 
me."

"Okay, you came from a lab.  From their lab.  
Like I did.  Like Samantha did.  When you were 
conceived, I doubt your mother was within a 
five mile radius.  You were probably 
manipulated throughout gestation.  They made 
you and you serve their purposes, whether you 
want to or not.  Just like the rest of us."  

His face was blank page.  No, it was worse than 
That; he was a  blank screen waiting for the 
projector to get to the next slide.  Scully 
couldn't read him, couldn't tell if he was 
hiding some emotion, or if this was one of 
those calm moments before the violent eruption 
of Mount St. Mulder.  She was unsure, and  it 
was that uncertainty which bothered her. 

Then she saw a tension around his eyes
that allowed her to breathe again.  He was in 
MulderOnAMission mode. 

"Okay, then.  Corrective lenses - why would the 
Uberman be nearsighted?"   

"Fuck if I know.  I wear glasses, too.  Guess 
it's just a design flaw they hadn't worked out 
at that point.  Though I think, I think it was 
a side effect of too much jacking with the 
fetal brain" 

"Why?  Why make us?  For what purpose?"  

"I'm guessing our particular bunch was made to 
kill E.T.  But I'm too stoned to explain it 
properly tonight," she giggled  "Take another 
hit - it's not like you don't have some neurons 
to spare."  

He didn't know what else to do but comply.  

Scully took the blunt next - it had been a long 
time. 

"Did you know my sister?  I mean, Samantha.  My 
sister Samantha?"  

The laughter evaporated.  Betty rolled onto her 
side, looked up at the agents with her small 
black eyes stretched wide.  "When I was six 
years old, men came to my grandparents' house 
and took me to live with my father at April Air 
Force Base to be 'tested'.  I spoke no English, 
I had never held a book or a pencil in my 
hands, I was suffering from a charming 
combination of malnutrition and overweight.  

"But there was a girl there who loved me, who 
was my sister.  She used to read to me.  We 
used to have those books,  A.A. Milne,  not 
Winnie the Pooh but the poems."  She did her 
best to ignore the tears rolling down his face. 
"You have to understand, Fox.  I was six years 
old when they took me.  I, I. . .loved him 
because I didn't know any better.  I hated the 
tests, but I believed him when he said they had 
to be done.  I would get so mad at Jeff.  I was 
jealous.  I thought he loved Jeffery more 
because he never had to go," she shivered 
violently, "he never had to go lay on those 
cold tables and be hurt by the doctors.  He was 
never tested.  Samantha knew I needed to 
believe he loved me even though it was a lie.  

"You know what she told me?  She told me, she 
told me when dad made Jeffrey, it was like 
making meatballs - you just sort of stirred the 
ingredients together and hoped for the best, 
but that she and I, that dad had made us 
carefully, piece by piece, like Frankenstein, 
that he gave us up for the tests because we 
were a different sort of a creation than our 
brother.  After that, she used to call Jeffrey 
'meatball' to cheer me up.  

"When she ran away, I killed myself.  Dad had a 
Jeremiah Smith bring me back.  After that, he 
brought a girl back home, but it wasn't Sam." 

"The kind of trauma she endured can change 
anyone."  Scully tried to comfort her.  

"You don't understand, Dana.  It wasn't her.  
My sister Sam fought him at every turn, she  
used to call Casa de Spender the Hanoi Hilton  
West.  The girl he brought home followed him 
around like a whipped dog.  It wasn't her."  

"Your father may have had Jeffrey Spender 
killed," Scully nearly whispered.  

"So I guess we know who the favorite son is."  
Betty gave a sad little smile.  "So how did the 
meatball turn out, anyway?  I haven't seen him 
since I was 8."  

Mulder looked ashamed.  "I don't know.  We 
didn't have the best working relationship." 

"Surprise, surprise, surprise."  

"Betty," Scully was quiet but confident - the 
shock and melancholy of the other two was not 
hers and she wouldn't pretend otherwise.  
"There are a lot of things we need to talk 
about, the reasons we're here. . ."  

"Tomorrow, Dana.  I give you whatever facts I 
have tomorrow.  They ain't much though; just 
enough to get you killed."  

"Like Jean?"  Mulder was studying her again.  

It was Scully's turn.  "Did they kill Jean?"  

She snorted in reply.  "Oh no!  A guy who could 
talk a toaster into making a pint of ice cream 
was shot in the head by an anonymous mugger, 
right?"  

Mulder and Scully's eyes locked for a fraction 
of an instant before she continued.  "It was 
ten days after I told him.  He wanted to go to 
you right away.  He wanted to blow the whole 
thing wide open.  Shit, if anybody could have 
made people believe, it was him.  I was afraid 
for Junior - even though he's a meatball.  I 
knew they'd threaten him."  

Scully used the tone she usually reserved for a 
distraught Mulder.  "Why did you tell him, 
Elizabeth?"   

"He made me.  You have to understand, Dana, 
they've been taking me all my life.  No lights, 
no pretense -  a car comes, and I go.  
Sometimes everyone's human, sometimes not.  
Usually, they knock me out, but occasionally I 
wake up at inopportune moments.  I tried to 
struggle for a few years, but it was useless.  
So I just went."  

Scully nodded. 

"I told him because Jean thought I was having 
an affair.  I loved him so much.  I couldn't 
stand the idea that he thought I'd be 
unfaithful.  So I told him.  Every sordid 
little detail, all the guesses I made.  And it 
killed him.  I killed him because I couldn't 
bear to have him think badly of me."  

Mulder had backed away almost to the opposite 
wall.  With someone like Mercy on his side, 
someone persuasive and admired, he quite 
possibly could have blown the conspiracy open a 
long time ago.  Of course, there most certainly 
would have been repercussions, mostly falling 
on Scully and Jean-Guy Jr.  And he might have 
risked it.

But in Elizabeth's position?  He both hated the 
decisions she had made, and understood them 
perfectly, probably would have made them 
himself in the same situation.  Had made the 
same decisions, really, while sitting on a 
folding chair in the Gunmen's offices staring 
at the image of CGB Spender on a television 
screen.

Scully was leaning in close to her again.  
"Betty, you didn't kill him.  They did."  

"Might as well have been me."  

All three exhaled sharply.  Betty stood up 
unsteadily and Mulder saw she was nearly his 
height, even bare foot.  Blinking, she slipped 
on a pair of incongruous black horn-rimmed 
glasses.  "Jesus, you guys look like shit.  How 
long you been up?"  

"Since 2 a.m., DC time."  

"Shit.  Go to bed."  

"Where's the nearest motel?"  

"Fuck if I know, but there's a bedroom about 
ten feet away."  

"We don't want to put anybody out."  

"Get a grip.  My long lost brother shows up and 
I'm gonna send him out to find a motel room at 
2 am in the middle of Nowhere, Oklahoma?"  

"Thanks." 

She held up her hand in the universal 'don't 
mention it' sign.  

"Use a condom, Bro," she called after them. 

End 01/02
=============== 

kokotheuberchimp@hotmail.com
http://www.geocities.com/onemillionandnine






Title: Pater Familias II – Absentia 02/02
Author: OneMillionAndNine
http://www.geocities.com/onemillionandnine
Rating: Bare mattress NC-17
Feedback: kokotheuberchimp@hotmail.com
Archive: feel free.
Disclaimer: I like to surf but it'll take more 
than that to make me Chris Carter . That aside, 
I still can't figure out how to turn fan fic 
into a cash cow.
Notes: in part 01/02

:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:

Scully had seen worse bedrooms, but had never 
slept in one.  She felt less tired than she 
probably should have.  She also felt less 
surprised than she would have imagined herself 
after the torrent of revelations.  

The one sensation she did have in spades was 
arousal.  Maybe it was the Old Crow lowering 
her natural inhibitions.  That, and the idea of 
fucking Superman.  Well, she wanted to...wanted
to...she didn't know what she wanted.  She 
threw herself on the dirty, bare mattress, 
getting stuck in the back with a spring for her 
trouble.  Before she could finish squealing 
"OW!" he was looming over her.  

He loomed great.  

"I gather you're taking the bed?"  His slanted 
eyes glowed brilliant green down at her and she 
felt naked.  

"You're free to join me on the mattress, such 
as it is."  Sheer will was all that kept 
her from looking away as he lowered himself 
down beside her.  

"We should talk." 

"Why?" 

"I'm sorry about the day...the day Benny was 
born.  I took...unfair advantage." 

"As opposed to taking fair advantage?" 

"It was a moment of weakness." 

"On both our parts, apparently." 

"You think it's weak to pity me?" 

"Pity?"  Shock overtook bravado on her face.  
"You think that was pity?" 

"What else would it be, Scully?  He couldn't 
help reaching out and tucking a strand of hair 
behind her left ear.  You don't have to spare 
my feelings."  

"Ummm. . .desire?" 

He pursed his lips and tensed his jaw.  "Don't 
be cruel, Scully.  I've had a long day." 

"Honestly, Mulder.  For about seven years, I've 
sat through your slide shows wishing I could 
get into your pants." 

"Nice to know your feelings for me run so 
deep."

"I'm telling the truth here, Mulder.  I've felt 
this way about you for a long time."

"What way is that?"  His gaze never wavered.  
"I 
seem to be slower than usual today.  Spell 
it out for me."
 
"Well," she did her best to keep her emotions
from getting the better of her, "you're my best 
friend.  I care for and about you.  I'm 
undeniably attracted to you.  And I have had 
your baby, Mulder."

He stared, nodding.

"I love you.  Is that what you're trying to get 
me to say?  It's true.  I love you. There, I 
said it."  She thought that her natural 
inclination would be to respond with anger, but 
she just didn't feel that.

"What about now?" 

"What do you mean, what about now?" 

"You still want to, ah, get into my pants?  Now 
that your curiosity has been satisfied, I 
mean." 

She sighed, the terror and tension having 
loosened for some reason she couldn't quite 
grasp.  "Mulder, even when I want to kill you 
with my bare hands, I want to get into your 
pants."

"Still?" 

"You mean, - " the alcohol she hadn't even felt 
before seemed thick in her blood "- do I still 
find you attractive now that I know you're 
Superman?"    

He nodded.  "Now that you know I'm part of 
their plans." 

"You mean, like me, Mulder?  After everything 
they've done to me, and you think I'd be 
bothered to know you were manipulated by 
Them?" 

"I think the word is 'engineered'." 

"Okay, whatever.  Engineered.  Welcome to the 
club.  Doesn't change a thing about how I feel.  
It's late, Mulder.  Go to sleep." 

"Don't you wanna know how I feel?" 

"You have made your feelings abundantly 
clear, Mulder." 

"I have?" 

"Yup." 

"How do I feel, Scully?" 

"You only want me if there's some kind of 
imminent threat or dire circumstance.  The 
rest of the time, you're a big old tease." 

"I'm a tease?" 

"The worst." 

"I don't mean to be a tease, Scully." 

"Okay then," she was proud to note she didn't 
sound at all flustered, "have sex with me." 

"What?" 

"I believe you heard me, Mulder. Have 
sex with me.  Not to clear the air, not to 
satisfy eight years of wondering, not because 
you're afraid you'll lose me, and not because 
I'm the mother of your child.  Have sex with me 
because you want me." 

"Umm...are you recovered...enough?  It doesn't 
seem like a good idea," his voice cracked, "um, 
considering what happened last time."
  
Scully laughed out loud, a short, sharp, ugly 
sound.  "Time to put up or shut up, partner.  
Unless you really are just a tease." 

"Okay."  The cracked ceiling took on a new 
fascination for him as he unbuttoned the fly of 
his jeans and eased them off his hips.  There 
were dozens of tiny skulls and crossed bones 
adorning his black boxer shorts.  "Scully, I 
want you.  You know I want you.  I just didn't 
know if you had a place for me."  

"Oh, I've got a place for you, alright."  She 
raised her eyebrow at the tented front of his 
shorts.  

Terrified of losing the small scrap of dignity 
that remained in place, Mulder was silent as he 
revealed his cock.  It trembled and a drop of 
clear, sticky fluid stood out on the head.  

"Uhhh, Scully, you gonna touch it or are you 
a tease?"  He swallowed, his mouth tight. 

"Can I?" 

"You better - unless you want to see grown man 
cry." 

She had no idea she was holding her breath.  
Almost unconsciously, she traced his length 
with her callused trigger finger.  He gasped 
and it sent a shiver washing over her skin.  

"You're weeping, anyway." 

"How...poetic.  Scully, Scully, I've 
wanted...to...be...with you like...like 
this...for so...fucking...long." 

"Tell me."  Her voice was as clear and precise 
as ever.  "Tell me everything you imagined." 

"I've thought about it so many ways." 

"Pick one."  She pressed her lips together 
and shut her eyes, overwhelmed for a minute as 
she brushed his testicles with her fingertips.  

"Promise you won't laugh." 

"Promise."  She echoed, her hands wrapping 
themselves around his shaft.  

"This is going to be a really short story 
if you don't back off a little bit.  One 
hand, okay?" 

She blushed fiercely.  "Sorry."  But she 
wasn't, not really. 

"Okay, in this one we've been, uhmm, intimate 
for awhile already, and you, you let me buy you 
uhmm, things to wear when we're together." 

"Things?" 

"You know, lingerie.  So, in this particular 
fantasy, I come home from work and you're all 
ready for me, and..." 

"Come home from work?" 

"We're married, okay?"  He looked angry.  

Alice had nothing on little Dana, who had, 
apparently, fallen down the rabbit hole 
straight down into a topsy-turvy world where 
her partner day-dreamed about being married and 
buying her underwear.  And she thought it would 
be to pushy to ask him to spend the night.  

She exhaled and stroked him gently.  "Go on." 

"You have on a...a black push-up bra...and a 
garter belt...stockings with seams down the 
back and. . .panties, 'cause you know how I 
love to take 'em off.  I'm home early, so I 
catch you doing the dishes." 

A healthy portion of Scully's brain wanted to 
smirk at him for imagining her washing dishes 
dressed up like she'd just stepped out of one 
of his videos.  This was her Mulder, alright - 
adolescent to the end.  But she promised no 
laughing.  And the idea that he thought of her 
as he watched his endless stream of porn movies 
made her gulp comically.  

"I sneak up behind you, right, and kiss your 
neck." 

"Where on my neck?"  She had failed to noticed 
when he had slipped one hand inside her pants, 
but it came to her attention when his index 
finger slid carefully between her labia.  

"On the right side, where your neck meets your 
shoulder." 

"Then what?"  Her breath was coming in hiccupy 
gasps.  

"I pull you down to the floor..."  His finger 
was flitting lightly over her clitoris and she 
couldn't shake the mental image of a bird 
trapped in her panties.

How long had it been it been since she'd pumped 
her breasts? She was momentarily gripped by the 
cold feeling of milk swelling inside her.

"Yeah, and?" 

"And. . .I eat you out." 

"Shit."  She was simultaneously aroused by the 
image and irritated by his amazing ability to 
sound like a 14 year old boy.  If he'd just 
said 'cunnilingus' instead, she would have 
come.  She both wanted to slap him and grind 
her crotch into his face.  "Mulder?" 

Small circles began to spread on the front of 
her shirt. Shit.

"Yeah, Scully." 

"Can I change my mind?"  The small circles 
began to rapidly widen.

"About what?"  He sounded alarmed. 

"About the talking.  I just want you to shut up 
and fuck me, okay?" 

"Um, I really like to talk during sex." 

She couldn't help but laugh at that.  "Is 
there a time when you don't really like to 
talk?"  

"Umm. . ."

"Okay, talk.  Just as long as I don't have to 
answer you." 

Mulder nodded in agreement.  "Sure you won't 
answer me?" 

"Not in English." 

"oh.  Uhm, can I kiss you?"

He felt free to rub her clitoris, but seemed to 
need permission to kiss her.  It would be a 
miracle if she didn't strangle him.  

For Mulder, the self-conscious part of his 
brain had completely overloaded and blown 
itself out around the time she had called him 
Superman.  For once, the there was no filter 
between his brain and his mouth and the words 
came out as he thought them.  

His mouth closed in on hers.  Her lipstick was 
slippery and bitter and the Old Crow on her 
tongue burnt his - it was heaven.  He rubbed 
the tip of his nose to hers as he bit down on 
her lower lip.  

Soon, the kissing took on a slurpy rhythm; 
probe, bite, bite, bite, suck, bite, bite, 
bite, probe.  He was pulling off her clothes 
in between bites.  It was a strange sensation, 
closer to eating than any kissing either had 
ever done.  If he hadn't pulled away, she had 
the feeling she would have gone on until both 
them were bleeding.  

Her entire chest was wet now, but instead of 
being put off, he seemed even further aroused.  
It vaguely worried the same part of her 
consciousness that drove her to choose Tofutti 
Dreamsicles over Dove bars.  She decided to 
ignore it.

"Scully, honey?  I want to get in you now, but 
if you move too much, it's gonna be over real 
fast, so just lie back and think of England.  
I'll make sure you come.  Trust me."  He backed 
up and pulled her pants down roughly.  

Based on her limited experience, it seemed Fox 
Mulder's penis had the power to make her razor-
sharp brain very, very rusty.  So it happened 
that Special Agent Dana Scully, M.D., lost not 
only her ability to be self-conscious, she had 
been robbed of her ability to understand her 
native language in any but the most rudimentary 
fashion.  Somehow, as soon as she finished her 
internal giggle at being called 'honey,' she 
was literally visualizing rain, Big Ben, green 
fields, Monty Python's Flying Circus, a double 
decker bus, and the Beatles, until his cock 
bumped insistently against her lips. 

"It'll be easier if you get me wet first."  
His voice sounded so tender that she would have 
told him to come off it if she hadn't been so 
horny, tired, and, if not drunk, then terribly 
close.

A few passes with her quick tongue were all he 
expected, but she rapidly swallowed him down to 
his pubic hair, her swollen lips stretched to 
their limit.  He gasped and jerked hard out of 
her throat.  

"Jesus fuckin' Christ, Scully!  Are you tryin' 
to kill me?!?!" 

"You didn't like it?"  She smiled up at him.  

"You're a succubus, aren't you Scully?  You can 
tell me.  Jesus, I'm never going to get used to 
this.  How am I ever going to get anything 
done?  I'm just going to look at you and come 
in my pants.  You're a fucking goddess.  
Fucking Goddess.  You know, you're never gonna 
be able to get rid of me."  He was breathing so 
hard every word came out as a gasp.  

He looked younger, gawky, all long arms and 
legs and sharp elbows and knees, as he 
positioned them, lining up the requisite parts. 
An awkwardness settled over them that just 
wasn't there the first time. 

"Stay still, stay still, stay still still 
stillstillstill,"  He pleaded, easing into her, 
fixing her hips in place with his hands.  He 
slid into her much faster than he had intended 
and almost came.  Like his first time.  Like a 
teenager.  

"I'll stay still if you'll shut the fuck 
up!" she hissed.  

He giggled nervously and pressed two 
fingers on either side of her erect clitoris.  
The only part of him that moved at all were his 
fingers, leisurely stroking the center of her 
sensation as her vagina rippled around him, so 
wet that he knew any movement at all would make 
little sucking noises.  The tightness was so 
intense that, at first, it was actually painful 
for both of them.  No surprise - it could never 
be argued that they had been built for each 
other.  Shouldn't childbirth have done 
something about this?  Oh yeah - caesarian.  
She had had a caesarian.  

To keep from speaking, he was forced to bite 
hard into his lip.  Still, he issued a 
continuous string of groans and squeaks.  

Scully was growling?  Yes, she was.  Her orgasm 
squeezed him so tight he imagined he was being 
permanently damaged.  Oh well, it would be 
worth it.  Two seconds later he lost control 
completely.  

"Awwww Fuck.  loveyouiloveyouiloveyouiloveyou."  
His hips rammed spastically against her.  She 
shuddered in pain.  The blood from where he 
had once again torn her slid down her ass as 
his semen congealed hot inside her.  

They were both surprised when, instead of 
collapsing into a deathlike sleep, he proceeded 
to lick the thickened, bitter fluid out of her.  
Her glossy shell-pink color both soothed and 
mesmerized him.  His fingertips - nine smooth, 
one roughened from his gun's trigger -  came 
perilously close to tickling her thighs as he 
sucked.

His head was spinning.  He was licking 
his own come out of Dana Scully, and there 
could not possibly be anything in the world 
better world than her hitched breathing as she 
had her second orgasm against his mouth.  

"Oh my God, Mulder!"  She had known that he 
would inevitably be open to more sexual 
possibilities than the other men she had been 
with, but what he had just done never once 
crossed her mind.  It took her breath away - 
his mouth felt so good on her battered labia 
and the act itself was so. . .dirty?  Well, 
that was not the right word.  Forbidden, maybe?  
Forbidden by whom? 

She was still puzzling over it when he pulled 
himself up beside her and wrapped them both in 
a ratty green blanket that smelled distinctly 
of dog.  Quickly, he kissed her, forcing a 
small pool of blood and semen between her lips.  
Leave it to Mulder to find something so 
grotesque and intimate and ultimately sweet to 
push on her.  

His hands touched her breasts tentatively.  She 
was concentrating on the taste of blood and 
ejaculate, thinking he wouldn't be so bitter if 
he had a decent diet.  Thinking she would learn 
to like bitter before he would submit to any 
semblance of healthy eating.  She wasn't sure 
which idea embarrassed her more - wanting to 
fellate him enough to get used to his taste, or 
wanting to change his eating habits.  

Smug.  He looked smug, like his sperm in her 
mouth was some sort of victory.  She rolled her 
eyes.  Yep, it was confirmed - she was now 
sleeping with the oddest man in the western 
hemisphere.  

"Scully?"  His head lay between her breasts.  

"Ssshhhh.  Go to sleep." 

"Scully?" 

"Sssshhhhh." 

"Don't you think. . .?" 

"No.  Go to sleep." 

"Scully?" 

"Shhhhh. . .Mulder?" 

"Yeah?" 

"Let me know next time you're going to do 
that."

"But Scully, my mother taught me not to talk 
with my mouth full." 

"I'll remind you of that at breakfast." 

"Scully?"  He snuggled against her chest, 
oblivious to the warm  milk pooling under his 
head.  "Next time will be better, I swear." 

Except for a brief and incredibly painful ride 
around dawn, Dana Scully slept soundly until 3 
p.m.  She was too tired to rib him about 
assuming there would be a next time.  

:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:


She could hear voices. 
 
"Your cheeks are higher."  
 
"But the jaw is the same."  
 
"I think your eyes might be a little bit 
bigger."  
 
"I don't think so.  I think they're about the 
same, mine are just angled in my face 
differently."  
 
"At least you have an upper lip."  
 
"Well, they had nine years to make a few design 
modifications."  
 
"Just think, you, too, could have this nose."  
 
"It's endearing.  It has character."  
 
"It was easier to accept when I thought I was 
the unfortunate victim of genetic roulette."  
 
"Fate's just what you call it when you don't 
know who's sticking it to you."  
 
"He made you better looking than me."  
 
"I don't think so, Bro.  Jean said you were 
quite the object of desire down at the Hoover 
building."  
 
"But you're really hot."  
 
"And that sure has made my life better.  
Besides, it's bad reasoning:  if we're so much 
alike, how can I be better looking?"  
 
She was amused to see them side by side in 
front of the bathroom mirror, scrutinizing 
their faces in myopic wonder. 
 
"The nose makes all the difference."  
 
"So if you were engineering someone...?"  
 
"Longer face, smaller, more even lips, bigger 
eyes, smaller nose, more chin."  It was 
apparent from the way he rattled it off that he 
had known the answer to that one for years. 
 
Scully couldn't help but laugh. "Mulder, I 
think you just described Tom Colton."  
 
"And on the third day, she rose."  Funny how 
years ago she never noticed how Betty's voice 
tended make the same odd shifts in pitch that 
amused her in her partner's. 
 
Mulder, however, was slightly shy and behaved 
as though she had been shot rather than fucked. 
"You okay?  You need a Tylenol or something?  A 
glass of milk?"  
 
Special Agent Scully was dumbfounded.  Her eyes 
fluttered, head tilted, mouth opened.  She 
began to laugh. 
 
"Man, and I thought Jean had a big head."  
Betty was laughing, too.  For several minutes, 
each time one woman paused they made eye 
contact and began to snort again. 
 
Mulder was in a very special hell.  He couldn't 
think of anything better to do than stare at 
the sink until he realized that someone had 
grabbed his ass.  He hoped to hell it was 
Scully. 
 
"May I?"  She gestured to the toilet. 
 
"Sure you don't need a wheel chair?"  And the 
two collapsed into giggles all over again, 
leaving Mulder to wonder what strange spasm of 
karma had brought him to this particular 
juncture.

:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:

Sitting on a rock in a field drinking coffee 
and eating slightly stale cornbread was 
actually quite pleasant.  The day had gone 
slightly rainy and cold but the bite of the 
wind was sweet on Scully's face.  Finally, they 
were getting somewhere, even if it seemed an 
awful lot of Betty's information was based on 
conjecture. 

What was more, she liked her.  It was not 
unlike the time in her life when, after a two 
year long lull, she and Missy had gone from 
hated rivals to friends.  The arrogant and edgy 
teenaged Betty had been simply beyond the 
comprehension of a cherished and sheltered 
young Dana Scully.  In purely selfish terms, 
she was pleased to find someone like her now.  
These days they were about equally guarded and 
hard bitten; adult  Scully liked that in a 
woman.   

She remembered when Betty had appeared,  
comet-like, during the beginning of Dana's  
junior year. Younger, exotic, and just plain 
smarter at a time Scully wasn't used to much 
competition in that department.  Then, to add 
insult to injury, her breasts managed to 
quadruple in size in a mere six months.  So 
much for Dana Katherine, sweetheart of 
Georgetown physics.  Betty didn't even seem 
like a real person back then, more like an 
insanely plumed bird-of-paradise, designed to 
show Scully for the drab little sparrow she 
was.  

Despite it all, she had learned some important 
things from the whole experience, things about 
being a woman doing a 'man's job'.  If you 
were attractive, you couldn't possibly have 
anything important to say.  If you were less 
than stunning, most men never even saw 
you, let alone heard you.  If you were a woman, 
you were screwed either way.  

The only real talk the two of them had during 
their two overlapping years studying physics - 
and it stuck with her over the years simply 
because the longer she lived, the more it 
seemed 15 year old Betty, sneering all the way 
through one of those post-final 'geektaculars' 
as she'd called them, had hit the nail on the 
head.  If she concentrated, she could still 
conjure up the image in her head: little Dana, 
Betty, and about thirty guys who looked like 
the Lone Gunmen in larval form, drinking beer 
and eating pizza.  She almost laughed to think 
she'd been naive enough to argue that she was 
the author of her own fate.

If they could convince Betty to go back to DC, 
Scully could nearly imagine she and Mulder 
doing couple things with Betty and Skinner.  
She could certainly see them having an 
entertaining lunch date together, which would 
be a refreshing break from sometimes cloying 
lunches with her mother or the bicker-du-jour 
with Mulder. 

"Like I said this morning, the Consortium fucks 
had the idea that, after the aliens came and 
got rid of all earth's undesirables, it would 
be their distinct pleasure to redesign human 
society.  Now, of course if you're a follower 
of traditional western thinking and buy the 
whole 'inherently evil nature of man' thing, 
you don't believe you can do that without 
redesigning the basic human.  Now they had an 
upper class essentially chosen for them, I 
believe, by the aliens, who instructed them to 
make disease-resistant hybrids capable of 
communicating with the Grays.  Cassandra was 
their first complete success.  They also had a 
labor class - they call them the Melissas- 
drones, essentially, engineered from Samantha 
and a few others - who were totally mute and 
incapable of independent reproduction." 

Scully winced. "Why that name?" 

"After the beekeeping priestesses of Athena, 
right?" Mulder answered. 

"Yup.  The other series is us.  The 
Praetorians, after the imperial guards of 
ancient Rome.  I think we were easier than the 
others in that there was less old DNA to turn 
on.  But they were playing with some very 
subtle brain chemistry when they designed us, 
trying to encode certain behaviors, certain 
personality traits.  I believe you're the 
oldest model still functioning.  I think it was 
your search for Sam that saved you.  From what 
I can gather, nowadays, they're mostly female 
and project gets 'em knocked up early.  It 
helps them make it sometimes." 

"Explain." 

"We have an innate need to love, protect.  We 
also lack a strong instinct for 
self-preservation.  We have an unhealthy 
tendency to focus our attention on a single 
individual.  New from Hasbro!  Now you too, can 
build a stalker in your basement!" 

Mulder was nodding. 

"Fortunately, there's a high attrition rate. 
The preservation-instinct problem.  I 
understand only a quarter have managed make it 
to adulthood.  Or, adulthood such as we are 
capable of." 

Mulder was enthralled.  "What's that supposed 
to mean?" 

"There are certain changes that take place in 
the adult brain that. . ." 

"Are you saying that the ability to build fixed 
neural pathways has been affected?"  Scully 
asked.

"They've been eliminated.  Our neurological 
chemistry is stuck in a permanent state of 
adolescence.  Kind of like an axolatyl-inducing 
neotony was a way to solve certain problems." 

Scully nodded and took a bite of cornbread, 
followed by a swallow of coffee.  "Betty, those 
weren't tricks you used to do at parties, were 
they?" 

"Well, just the boiling water thing.  I got all 
the rest out of a book." 

"What are you talking about, Scully?" 

"Betty used to have this act she'd do. . . " 

"Nothin' like getting liquored up and putting 
on a show for the meatballs. That part of the 
experiment failed.  All I can do is effect 
temperature, nothing like what they were 
shooting for." 

At this point Mulder drew himself to his feet 
and walked away, muttering. 

Dana Scully suddenly felt very tired, even as 
she set down her coffee to follow him. 

"You know you just encourage him to do this 
kind of crap when you rush after him." 

"And you would suggest?" 

"Years of in-depth therapy.  But given our 
current time constraints, I'd say we should 
continue our conversation and if he feels like 
coming back, he will.  To tell the truth, I'd 
be really fucking surprised if he goes all the 
way back to the house.  I predict he'll turn 
around and pout as soon as he realizes you 
aren't racing behind him.  Then, after what he 
deems an appropriate length of time, he'll come 
grumbling over here, sit back down, and glare 
at me.  If we continue to ignore him, he will 
then blurt out what he has on his mind." 

"He thinks you're lying." 

"No."  She shook her head.  "He wants me to be 
lying.  There's a big difference.  I also 
thinks he's jumped a few steps ahead of us and 
doesn't like where we're going." 

Scully looked dubious.  So Mulder was throwing 
a hissy fit in anticipation of what he THOUGHT 
Betty was going to say?  Betty knew he knew.  
He knew Betty knew he knew.  The syntax alone 
was irksome. 

"So?" 

"So.  No one falls into this game through 
happenstance.  They sent you to him as a test, 
to see if he could do the job he was designed 
to do." 

"What was that?" 

"You two really need to work on your 
communication skills." 

"What is it, Betty?"  She asked, even though, 
at that moment, she knew.  She knew.  If she 
was right, this changed everything.  And 
nothing.  It meant. . . it meant . . .nothing 
that had happened to her had anything to do 
with Mulder.  'Not everything is about you' – 
how she wished she'd been wrong.

If Betty said the words, it meant that, even 
if she'd refused her assignment to rein in the 
crank in the basement, even if she'd left one 
of the dozens of times she'd seriously 
considered it, fuck, even if she'd married 
Ethan Minette when he'd asked, her terror 
would be the same.

It also meant that staying with Fox Mulder was 
not by definition being wedded to calamity.  He 
did not bring her into this - she had been born 
to it, no differently than Emily or any of the 
rest of them.

It also meant that Benny was, on some level, 
wholly and completely the Consortium's 
creature.  How would she ever protect him?

She felt the color slide from her face, but 
managed somehow to keep her features blank, 
even as she wondered why she bothered.  Exactly 
who was she trying to impress with her show of 
strength?

"Well, Dana, you're one of the Purity Control 
mothers.  Fox has known it for years.  And I 
guess he never told you." 

Suddenly, Scully's cornbread seemed hard in her 
throat.  "It was pretty obvious."  Trying hard 
not to be at all surprised.  "They did take my 
ova, after all." 

"Well, we were made to protect you - and the 
other women like you.  But, according to old 
Dad, after observing the X-Files dynamic in 
action, our particular line was declared an 
unmitigated failure." 

She shook her red head in puzzlement. "I don't 
get it." 

"You save him, but he's supposed to save you. 
He's supposed have incredible feelings of 
devotion for you, but be unable to function 
with you sexually; clearly, he can.  He is not 
supposed to elicit strong feelings from you; 
clearly, he does." 

Mulder had approached noisily and listened for 
some time, though neither woman acknowledged 
him in any way.  "Then I must be the failure." 

"No, you're the success.  While you don't have 
too much alien DNA, you are almost perfectly 
compatible with them, biologically.  Your genes 
were used to enable them to change Cassandra 
the way they did.  Your mom make a lot of 
Christmas cookies when you were a kid?" 

"Yes."  It came as a sigh 

"Well, when Cassandra wasn't spending the 
holidays on a locked ward, she used to make a 
lot of cookies, too." 

Scully frowned.  "What does this have to do 
with..."
 
Betty cut her off.  "She used to make this 
basic dough that you could use for all the 
varieties you wanted.  Add an extra egg, some 
coconut, and some maraschino cherries and you 
had one kind of cookie.  Take another hunk of 
dough, add some melted chocolate..." 

"Your point?" 

"Mulder's the basic dough.  He's the perfect 
starting point.  Fox was a failure because he 
should have been too unstable to act on any of 
his feelings for you, unable to do anything but 
protect you.  He should never have been able to 
actually have any sort of relationship with 
you, beyond maybe that worshiping-from-afar 
crap and maybe some kind of stuttering 
professional dialogue.  They wrote him off. 
They wrote us off.  But about a year ago, 
something changed.  Suddenly, they want him, 
want us.  They want a lot of us.  And I'm 
pretty sure they're making them.  Well, this 
time I draw the line in the sand." 

"Wait, wait - too many pronouns.  What are you 
saying?" 

"They are making more Praetorians, more 
Praetorians from our patterns." 

"The Consortium was destroyed.  Who is doing 
this?"

"You know that after Attila the Hun died his 
heirs couldn't hold the soldiers together.  
They fought among themselves and eventually 
degenerated into the bands of thugs they'd been
originally."

"And a splintered Consortium could be 
potentially more dangerous than a united front?  
How do you propose to stop them?"

"I didn't say I was going to stop them, though 
I sincerely hope they'll destroy themselves.  
With the last of the original members gone, 
it's Lord of the Flies time on Consortium  
Island.   I'm just refusing to play Drusilla to 
Fox's Caligula.  Not even in a petri dish.  Not 
in this life." 

A low voice spoke up.  "You don't have proof 
for any of this, do you?" 

"Since when do you need proof, Mulder?"  Scully 
was irritated to a degree she had previously 
thought impossible. 

"So what, The Smoker is everybody's father now, 
right?  Mine, yours, Samantha's, Alex Krycek?  
He our brother, too?  How 'bout Skinner? 
Scully?  What about Covarrubias - are you 
gonna tell me I fucked my sister, now?  This is 
just one big fucked-up family, right?  Maybe 
what we really need is a therapy session.  We 
could go on Jerry Springer." 

Betty Roguebull was chuckling.  "You  said it, 
not me.  Look, the original Consortium members 
just sort of stumbled into it, but it didn't 
take long for them to see themselves as members 
of a very select elite.  All the younger 
players were made by the original conspirators- 
one way or another." 

"How does Scully come into this?" 

"You're making Oxford look pretty over-rated 
right now, Bro "  She turned away from him.  
"Your father's career military, right?"  She 
nodded at Scully.  "All your health care was 
done at military hospitals, from your mother's 
first prenatal check to your first pelvic exam?  
They had to use a larger group to try an create 
a hybrid.  The circle of conspirators was too 
small." 

"Just tell me I'm not related to Krycek." 
Mulder was studying Scully. 

"Ironically, I understand Alex Krycek is Bill 
Mulder's sole offspring." 

After a moment of hyperventilating shock, 
Mulder began vomiting forcefully.  Scully's 
shoes, cornbread, and coffee all fell victim.  
Betty shrieked with hilarity. 

Mulder spat.  "As long as you're amused." 

"What can I say?  You're pretty fucking funny." 

Scully tried to maintain her traditional role 
as the beleaguered voice of sanity, but things 
began to spiral out of control from that 
point.  Mulder made a few pointed remarks about 
mothers who abandon their children and asked if 
she'd waited until after her husband was 
actually buried before she screwed Skinner.  
Betty, in her turn, was just as cruel, pinning 
him with both personal and professional 
impotence. 

"I hear you were really good at profiling, 
though.  Why'd ya quit?  Wake up one day and 
find yourself jerkin' off to a picture of 
twelve year old wearing a ballgag?  You like 
that about Dana, don't you?  In dim light, I 
bet she could pass for twelve."  Betty's eyes 
glinted briefly.  "No, I think eight is more 
your speed, right?" 

That was the one that finally did it.  He 
lunged.  

Scully tried to force herself between them, 
until she recognized that they were both 
utterly oblivious to her.  Mulder was bigger, 
but not by much, and while he had superior 
upper body strength, Betty had better balance.  
She seemed ever so slightly more able, more 
angry, less restrained.  It could go either 
way.

Then Betty's fist connected with Mulder's nose 
quickly - once twice three times - and his 
hands wrapped round her neck. 

This was serious.  Scully had to do something, 
but her gun was in DC.  There was no point 
trying to tell them anything, since they 
weren't capable of listening or hearing.  She 
was simply too small to pull them apart 
physically.  

In the end, she knocked them both in the head 
with a sun-bleached bone she found not too far 
away.  

Legbone.  Bovine.  Still had a hoof on one end. 

Silly, but effective. 

:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:

The offending parties were sitting on the 
ground cupping their heads tenderly, distorted 
mirror images.

"What the hell was that?"  Scully was pacing 
and fuming, still holding the bone.

"I'm guessing the telepathic equivalent of 
guitar feedback."  Betty was staring at the 
blood on her hands with wonder.

Mulder nodded.  "A good bet, I'd say."  Wincing 
as he flexed his fingers.  "The emotion is 
echoed 
back, both amplified and distorted, only to be 
amplified and distorted again."

"Ad infinitum."  Betty rubbed her throat.

"Only hole in that theory is - you're not 
telepathic.  Any more."  Scully stood 
in her angry stance, feet apart, hands on hips. 
"Are you?"  

Mulder rubbed his eyes and tried to scrub the 
dirt out of his teeth with his tongue.  He 
shook his head.  "I had a dream about an hour 
before Skinner called me..."

"Oh, brother."  Scully threw her head back, 
searching the sky, wondering what sin she had 
committed to earn her this partner, this stupid 
line of reasoning, this ridiculous life.  She 
felt she should run to the car as fast her 
little legs would carry her, then drive nonstop 
to DC.  He was nuts.  They were nuts.  All of 
them, her included.  

"Hear me out, Scully."

Oh no, the 'beseeching' look.  It was a 
miracle Scully had never killed him herself.

"I dreamed I was, um, being intimate with Jean 
Mercy.  But I wasn't myself.  I was a woman.  I 
was Betty, Scully.  I looked in the mirror and 
I was Betty."

Scully considered what he'd said.  "There are 
plausible explanations for this, Mulder."

"Was that all?"  Betty narrowed her gaze.

Mulder shook his head like a dog.

"What was the rest?"  Her glittery black eyes 
had become two piss holes in the snow.

"He turned into Skinner."

"And?"

"And I puked."

"What was I doing at the beginning of the 
dream?"

"Painting your nails - Revlon Top Speed.  One 
Coat.  Quick Dry.  Mink.  Do you understand how 
this happened?"

"Not really.  It was an intense dream, but no 
offense, the old man said you were a really 
weak, telepathically.  Receiver only.  
Equivalent of a cheap Yugoslavian radio - takes 
forever to warm up and find the station and 
even then the signal's spotty."

"It's how I profile, isn't it?"

"Just the Spooky part - anyone with right DNA 
turned on can pick up a signal.  Correctly 
interpreting the information requires a 
smarter-than-average bear."

He was nodding.  Scully was circling the two, 
bone still in hand.

"Sorry about..."  Betty gestured vaguely 
toward him.

"Aaa, Scully can tell you my week isn't 
complete if I don't get my ass kicked at least 
once.  I usually don't...usually don't go 
around hitting pregnant women.  Shit, you 
alright?"  He looked at her through one eye.  
"Skinner's gonna knock my teeth down my throat 
for this."

"Not if you don't tell him."

Mulder's eye brows shot upwards.

"She's come home to die Mulder."  Scully said 
just as the realization hit her in the same 
voice he was used to hearing from her in the 
morgue - sad, bored, tired, but precise.

"Before you say anything, Bro, listen to me.  
This is the only way.  If I'm dead there's no 
reason to threaten Junior.  If I'm dead they 
can't use me to further the project.  Face it - 
alive, I'm nothing but a liability."

"When?" He couldn't argue.

"Well, I thought I'd indulge myself in a 
premature wake tonight, then tomorrow I bite 
the big weenie."

"How?"

"I have uhh can uhh consciously control my 
autonomic nervous system.  I'll just, you know, 
lay down and die, like Dan George in Little Big 
Man, only I know for a fact the magic's gonna 
work "

"Is that all the information you have Betty?"  
The no nonsense ScullyVoice again.  She 
supposed she could argue, but even if she 
didn't agree with Betty's choice, she could 
understand it.

"All the technical information, yeah.  
Everything else is just, you know, family shit.  
Maybe you'd rather not hear it.  I doubt any of 
it matters much."

He eased himself onto his side. "Tell me."

"Where shall I start?"

"Krycek "

"Well, that kinda starts with the Mulders.  The 
way I understand it, both of them were going to 
be used for Project Praetorian initially but 
Spender, I think, well, he was...he saw to it 
Bill Mulder was found genetically unacceptable.  
He'd been enamored of your mother since the 
beginning and I think it was his way of..."

"Pretty much raping her."  Mulder's smile was 
ugly and humorless.  He closed his eyes and 
released a chuckle that was nearly a sob.  
Scully had silently come to stand behind him 
and was now stroking one stubbly cheek.

"My mother was never even a volunteer.  
Krycek...um...after Samantha was born, I 
understand it started to get to Bill Mulder 
more than before and he had an affair.  I think 
she was his secretary at the State Department.  
Anyway, she worked for him some way or another.  
When she got pregnant, he came to Dad to ask 
him to arrange an abortion.  Instead, good old 
Charlie Spender married her off to some 
Consortium goon.  Sasha used to come over and 
play.  We're about the same age."

"What was her name?  I might remember her."

"Dad called her Cozy, but I think her given 
name was Cosima."

"She was the maid."  He closed his eyes.  "Our 
maid.  She used to have cookies ready everyday 
when I came home from school."  His shoulders 
were shaking silently somewhere between weeping 
and cackling.  "Shit."

"Mulder?"  Scully was trying to soothe him her 
palm, rubbing tight circles on his now hunched 
back.

"My parents hired her when Mom was carrying 
Samantha.  The one before her used to drink and 
steal change off my mother's dresser.  Cozy 
used to-" he hiccupped.  "Cozy.  When I was 
little I used to splash her when she gave 
me a bath."

"Mulder, I think everyone did that when they 
were a kid, albeit most children splash their 
mother not the maid."

"Scully, I did it because if I got her wet 
enough, she'd take her blouse off."  The 
laughter began like popcorn ricocheting off the 
plains.  "Just think, Alex and I had our little 
dicks scrubbed by the same woman."  He was 
edging up on hysteria.

After a while, Scully and Elizabeth couldn't 
help but follow him.  "I kind of figured.  I 
just never.  I mean, I was old enough to figure 
it out, just not old enough to suspect my dad."  
His side ached.  "I was probably in the house 
when he was conceived.  Oh My Fucking God, kind 
of adds a whole new dimension to my life-long 
feelings of inadequacy."

"You know, Sasha's step-dad, he was the kind of 
guy, the kind of  guy who'd marry a pregnant 
stranger because Spender told him to.  I still 
don't know if he was incredibly loyal or 
incredibly craven.  I think he was the 
first person Alex ever killed.  Alex was about 
15 and they were up reshingling the roof.  I 
don't know what was said or done, but I heard 
Sasha beat the back of his skull in with a 
hammer."

Mulder opened his eyes to stare.  "Seems to be 
a pattern.  Did you know he killed Bill 
Mulder?"

Betty nodded as if she had known, or at least 
suspected as much.  "Now this is the funny 
part, I remember how proud Dad, Spender, was.  
'Today you are a man' and all that crap.  He 
got him his own apartment and put him  to work 
after that.

Mulder couldn't help snorting.

"God, Sasha worshiped our Dad.  He used to be 
afraid like everybody else until, well, okay. 
His step-dad was not big on buying toys and I  
remember him pining, absolutely pining, for 
some Legos, but Mr. Krycek wouldn't go for it.  
And Cozy, she was too fucking terrified to defy 
her husband.  Resourceful boy that he was, 
Sasha decided to steal Jeff's a few at a time.  
You know, 'cause who's gonna notice five 
missing Legos?  Anyway, Dad figured it 
out not long after Sam and I did, and you know 
what he did?  He bought him one of those big 
ass tubs of 'em, you know the big honking 
LegoRama.  After that, you woulda thought Dad 
was fucking Santa Claus the way Sasha treated 
him.  Nobody's all good or all bad, Fox."

Scully's cell phone chose that moment to ring.  

Mulder, meanwhile, was sucked into his own 
rapidly swirling brain.  Alex Krycek, it 
seemed, was the rightful owner of his life.  
The money, the connections, the education, the 
bureau job Bill Mulder had arranged so easily 
for him, the advantages that he had ignored 
because he felt so very entitled to them, 
should never have been his, should have gone to 
a boy so desperate he'd sold his soul for a 
bunch of crappy plastic bricks.

Mulder himself belonged...where?  With the 
sons-of-bitches he had sworn to expose?  Was he 
really any different than their other 
creations? Emily, the Jeremiah Smiths, the Kurt 
Crawfords?

Never should have been.  It wasn't the first 
time he wondered that about himself.  Now the 
question brought its own answer.  Of course 
not.  You are a monster, Fox Mulder.  If the 
villagers had any sense, they'd be here with 
their torches.

He couldn't deny it now.  His only purpose was 
Scully.  And even that had been engineered.  He 
loved her because he had been designed to love 
her.  Those sorry sons-of-bitches had written 
it in every cell of his body and it pulled him 
like a tide.

But she loved him.  That hadn't been part of 
the plan.  He couldn't help wondering precisely 
to what degree they had risen above their 
original programming.


He need to get out of this.  His life as Fox 
Mulder, Marionette, had to end.  And she was 
coming with him, even if it took handcuffs and 
a roll of duct tape.  She and the baby. 

Christ, he sounded like Duane Barry.  He had 
clearly lost his mind.  He was also clearly 
right.  He sincerely hoped he wouldn't need the 
tape.

Elizabeth was listening intently to Scully's 
phone conversation.

"Okay?"

"Yeah?  Yeah?  I'll tell him.  Umm hhhhm.  No, 
if you wake him up now his schedule will be off 
for days.

"Frohike, give me Byers.  Why won't he come to 
the phone?  Okay, Langly then.

"Langly?  What have you got?  I'm assuming 
that's why you called and not just so Frohike 
could do some of his heavy breathing.  Well, 
give them to me.

"Yes, I'm sure.  That's not possible.  Because 
the person that sample came from was born 
shortly before Agent Mulder's ninth birthday.  
How's that?  Your friends must have made a 
mistake.  Everyone makes mistakes.  Then have 
them triple check it."  Scully rolled her blue 
eyes upward.

"Why, hello Byers.  What's this crap about? Uhh 
hhuuuuhhh.  How else can I think about it? 
Illuminate me, by all means.  Granted.  Yes.  
But it's a long, long jump.  Yes.  Yes.  You 
wanna tell him?  I need more than that if you 
expect me to...okay, I'll give him the results.  
You have another place you can get the sample 
retested?  Yes, three times should be enough.  
Frohike, be careful what you wish for."  By the 
time the conversation was over, four eyebrows 
raised themselves expectantly at her.

"It's stupid.  It's a mistake - it has to be a 
mistake."  Her voice was crackling with 
irritation.

"What is it Scully?  Come on."  He waggled his 
head side to side.  "You're talking to Mister 
Extreme Possibility, here."  He was trying to 
convince her he was game, ready for whatever 
bizarre casserole life was dishing up for him 
next.

"Well?"  Betty gave her a look that was nearly 
a photocopy of the patented PissyMulder frown.

"According to our friends, you most certainly 
share more DNA than the average two strangers 
plucked from a crowd at random."

"Come on, Dana."  Betty's voice was level.

"Yeah, tell us, Dana.  I'm ready for it."  
Mulder was somewhere between irritable and 
mocking.

"I hesitate for precisely that reason, 
MonsterBoy.  I don't want you twisting yourself 
into knots over a couple of wonky test 
results."

"Scully."  There was a note of pleading in his 
voice.

"According to The Gunmen's testing source..."

"...Who've never been wrong before," he 
interrupted her.

"There is a ninety nine point eight two percent 
chance that...it seems that.  Well, it would 
appear from a comparison of your DNA that you 
are definitely related, though not quite the 
way we expected."

Two pairs of already small eyes narrowed at 
her.

"If the test results are to be believed, half 
of Betty's genetic material comes from either 
you or someone genetically identical to you." 

Mulder's response was to shake himself like a 
wet dog.  "That's not possible.  Is it?"

"Not as far as traditional science is 
concerned, but then neither are aliens or shape 
shifters or any number of other things you and 
I have witnessed.  On the other hand, there are 
theoretical methods of reproducing without 
gametes.  What is a sperm but the body's 
genetic delivery system?  It is theoretically 
possible that someone with sufficiently 
advanced technology could simply introduce 
chromosomes carrying the desired traits into a 
prepared egg cell.  Chromosomes that are 
present in an ordinary body cell."

Betty was nodding as if hypnotized.  "Makes 
perfect sense.  They went through all the 
trouble of designing Fox, so why reinvent the 
wheel when it came time to produce the new 
model?  Doesn't work for Detroit, doesn't work 
for the Consortium."  She regarded Mulder, 
cocking her head.  "Seems I've been sending 
Fathers' Day cards to the wrong white guy all 
these years.  So neither of my parents were 
willing participants in my conception?"  With a 
sigh, she fell flat on her back in the grass.  
"This week at SpenderMart: two violations for 
the price of one!"

At that moment an idea that her subconscious 
had been wrestling with for several minutes 
finally bubbled its way up into Scully's waking 
thoughts and she sat down in front of Mulder, 
stunned.  "Mulder!  My eggs!"  She began to 
tremble almost imperceptibly.

He was overcome, his eyes stretched painfully 
wide.  There was a good chance that he and 
Scully...he and Scully...he and Scully...
"Shit!" he whispered, his eyes shot wide, his 
knees drawn tight to his chest, his hands 
locked tight behind his head. 

Betty sat up as if pulled by a string.  "What?"

"They, they harvested my ova when I was 
abducted, all of them.  If this means what I 
think it might mean,"  Scully was whispering, 
on the naked edge of begging - how had she 
gotten so greedy? 

"NO!"  Betty was far inside the perimeter of 
Scully's personal space nearly touching her.   
"Look Dana, I am not having this baby.  I am 
not staying alive just to give these men 
another pawn.  I don't care if this fetus came 
from fucking Mother Teresa and Stephen Hawking, 
I'm not bringing one more tool into this world 
for them.  You know that's all the three of us 
are.  There's no proof, right?  This pregnancy 
could have come from any number of test 
subjects."

Scully simply took her hand.  "Betty, Mulder 
and I already have a son.  He's...just a baby."

She tore her hand out of Scully's grasp.  "No, 
Dana.  You don't know exactly what this means 
yet.  This could mean you never have a moment 
of peace, never have another moment in your 
life without fear.  For the rest of your life, 
you will lie awake in bed at night wondering 
how you could love someone so much and still 
bring them into a world where you're helpless 
to protect them."

Mulder reached out for both of them, uncertain 
of what to say.  Elizabeth surged toward him, 
grasping his hand tightly, but refusing to come 
any closer.  Scully, however, stood and walked.

She was reeling.  She wanted, with every 
fiber of her being, to deny, deny, deny.

She and her baby were normal, utterly normal.  
If Fox Mulder wanted to believe he had been 
conceived as part of a plot to remake the human 
race in CGB Spender's hideous image, well, he 
could go right ahead.  She focused on trying to 
believe she and her baby had no part in this.  
None at all. 

But she couldn't.  No matter how much she 
wanted to pretend, it wouldn't work.  

Fuck Fox Mulder for existing in the first 
place.  Maybe she could make it all his fault.  

Well then, fuck her, too.  She owned more than 
half of this, and she knew it.  She wanted to 
confess ... but to whom ?

What could she do?  It's not like she could put 
that beautiful boy back where he came from, 
split him back into his original parts and keep 
him safe.  Betty's plan made more and more 
sense, and it terrified her.  But then the baby 
would be completely unprotected.  The minute 
infanticide/suicide flickered through her head, 
she wanted to die.  Rip Mulder to shreds with 
her bare hands first, of course, then disappear 
into nothing.  She loved the baby.  And Mulder.  
And she was so weak she couldn't even bear the 
knowledge of her own helplessness.  She was 
utterly useless. 

"Why do I suddenly get the feeling we're 
playing paper-scissors-rock here, Scully?  If 
we calm down for a minute I'm sure..."

"You're sure of what, Mulder?  Sure we can find 
a way to track down hundreds, perhaps 
thousands, of potential offspring?  Account for 
every single one of my eggs?  And if we could, 
then what?  Take half to my apartment and half 
to yours? Get a house and play Mommy Agent and 
Daddy Agent, while a struggle takes place for 
the fate of the world?  My God, Mulder, what 
have we done?"

Mulder stood up, dragging Betty with him.  They 
closed in on Scully in three strides and Mulder 
grabbed her hard by the shoulder.  "Tell me you 
don't want this."

"Want has nothing to do with it."  She hugged 
herself.

Dreamlike, they closed in on her.  Long 
overheated arms wrapped around her.  It was a 
strange thing that happened next, another 
feedback loop, only his time sorrow and comfort 
wrapped tight around her. Betty understood all 
too well the noose they were in and a warm. 
drowsy sort of succor that had a strange, 
sharp, almost physical sting emanated from her.  
Words rang from Elizabeth to Scully and back 
again {this thing is the same for us - what 
Betty?  What's the same?  The same for who?}  
She was suddenly terrified of a wrong move as a 
grossly appealing idea crossed her mind.

It would be so easy to get caught between the 
two of them sexually - the ultimate feed back 
loop.  It would be so good.

It would also quite possibly ensure that 
nothing was ever good again.  

A realization struck like a fist.  This thought 
had not originated with her.  But who?  The two 
giants looming over her were equally excited 
and repelled by the idea.  Images and numbers 
cascaded.

Someone was envisioning Mulder's cock buried 
between her labia, Betty's tongue caressing the 
three inches or so at the base he would never 
be able to fit into Scully.  She couldn't 
suppress a shiver.

The next image was the two agents cheek to 
cheek between Elizabeth's legs, lips, tongue, 
teeth frenziedly attacking everything in sight.

Then just the two women kissing as broad male 
hands ran over them.

Finally, two pairs of lips kissing around 
Mulder's cock.

Her skin felt as though she was covered with 
ants or was midstream in a powerful electrical 
current.  She could feel their thoughts.  She 
was reading their minds.  She had never truly 
believed it was possible but here she was.  She 
knew herself well enough to know she was 
incapable of coming up with the breadth and 
volume of ideas and images currently coursing 
through her brain.  Equations described the 
swell of her breasts and the breadth of 
Mulder's shoulders, their waists.  It became 
quite simple to differentiate between their 
thoughts - Mulder's libido was drunk with 
words, some of them embarrassing.  It was true, 
she loved him, but she could have lived her 
entire life without hearing the phrase 
"glorious expanse of rounded ass" describing 
her in his mind.

Actually, that example was on the tame and 
tasteful end of the Mulder-thought spectrum.  
He was picturing her on her hands and knees and 
himself behind her.  Analingus, Mulder?  He 
answered with a silent affirmative so lewd and 
vivid that heat poured through her like a 
river.

This was such a mistake, but she was trapped 
between them, barely capable of conscious 
thought, though easily in more control than 
either Betty or Mulder.  Their arms were 
wrapped around each other's waists, locking 
Scully in like a very adult game of London 
Bridge.  They dipped their heads in unison and 
two pairs of obscenely full lips brushed either 
side of Scully's neck.

Betty was singing softly in her ear, "-build it 
up with iron bars, iron bars, iron bars, My 
Fair Lady."

Their touches were almost extraneous.  She 
found her body responding as if thought itself 
was action.  This was unequivocally wrong.  
Mulder's penis felt sharp grinding into her 
belly through, how many? Four? No, six layers 
of clothing.  She knew her perception was wrong 
and the strange clutch she found herself in was 
only seconds old.

Then another picture.  Bright but soupy.  A 
definite Bergman movie look to it.  Jean-Guy 
Mercy beckoning from a rumpled bed.  It both 
sizzled and ached.  Betty shoved them away in a 
split second so rough that they wound up in a 
stunned pile on the ground.

Scully gasped.

Mulder backed away, crab-like, his arms wrapped 
around his head. "I'msorryI'msorryI'msorry."

"I'm saying this in the nicest way possible, 
Fox."  Betty glared at him with a look of 
uncontained rage.  "Never touch me again.  
'Kay?  Or I will literally rip off your dick 
with my bare hands.  Hear me?  No skin-to-skin 
contact.  I may not have long to live, but I 
have no interest in crossing incest off the 
short list of things I've never done.  I will 
not lose control again "  She enunciated as if 
he was not only hard of hearing, but also 
stupid, and relatively unfamiliar with the 
English language.

"I didn't mean...it just..."  His hands still 
covered his face.

"Have either of you considered the possibility 
that you were designed to respond this way?" 
Scully eyed them both calmly.  She would impose 
order on this chaos, remain calm, whether she 
meant it or not.

"That's too sick, even for Spender."  Mulder 
shook his head.

Betty's body tensed.  "He 'would' do something 
like this if he thought it served his 
purpose.  Good method of propagation, really; 
dominant traits will survive and the mistakes 
will probably Darwin themselves out"  Then she 
got up and walked away. 

Mulder seemed incapable of raising his face to 
meet Scully's gaze.  Instead, he spoke in a 
murmur, his eyes fixed on the grass. "I...  
uhhh...  Scully...I never wanted it like 
this...this way...don't think I wanted...I 
don't know what you saw."

"Everything, Mulder."

It was several minutes before she could bring 
herself to look at him, and when she did, he 
was crying.

She crawled along the ground until she was 
sitting beside him.

"Mulder " she whispered "Mulder, I hate to tell 
you this but you were right.  We have to go.  
But I don't think disappearing will be enough.  
We'll have to make it look like we're dead.  
Things are going to be okay.  We're all going 
to be okay."

She forced open his clenched fist and laid a 
kiss in his palm.

:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:

All the stereotypical elements were in place.  
A rented car.   A black night.  A flight to 
catch.  More unanswered questions than could be 
stowed safely in the overhead compartment.

"So?"  She licked her bottom lip.  

"So?"  He wished he was wearing a tie so he 
could loosen it.  

Her eyes darted shiftily around the dark 
interior, but there was nothing to see but 
dials and knobs and scattered glowing numbers.  

Mulder cleared his throat softly. "Do you think 
she made the right decision?"  

"No.  Suicide is never the right decision.  But 
I understand why she did it.  She was afraid 
and it seemed like it was the last piece of 
control she could exercise."

"You really think that's true?  Because it 
seems to me that there are most likely many 
instances where taking one's own life can be 
the best remaining option "

"Where there's life there's hope, Mulder."

"That's a little trite, don't you think?"

"It's also true.  You know, Betty seemed so 
strong, so tough, but the truth was, she lived 
her entire life as a victim, a guinea pig for 
the men who made her.  She had no idea how to 
even begin fighting them, and it was easier for 
her to die than to learn to resist.  It's been 
a hard road, but you've taught me that.  You've 
taught me how to resist.  If it weren't for 
you, I'd be just like her - terrified, my 
entire life out of my control, with no idea how 
to fight."

"Scully?"

"No Mulder, I mean it.  I shudder to think of 
where I'd be without you.  I owe you everything 
and...you owe me a hell of a lot, too."

They both laughed, a nervous, sharp laugh.  
Funny that this was what it took to bring the 
two of them to the same page, but here they 
were: scared, elated, guilty, reeling.  

She stretched her legs in front of her, glad 
for once that she was short, thankful not to be 
Fox Mulder and unable to have a good stretch in 
the passenger seat of a Ford Taurus.  "So 
what's the plan, partner?"  

He had been buried in the steadily shifting 
sands of his own thought, and it took a moment 
to get free.  "Huh?"   

"You know, the plan, the fabulous disappearing 
Mulders, featuring Scully the Magnificent."  
She smiled.  

"Oh.  That plan.  It was kind of..."

"Try me."

By the time the shine of Dallas lit the 
horizon, they had agreed on arson, manufacture 
of a false surveillance video, new identities 
in some small town somewhere, and the theft of 
some dead bodies.  Really, it was disturbing 
how shockingly not uncommon it was for a 
hospital to "lose" a body.  

"We're really gonna do this?" he wondered.  As 
far as he could see, the difficult parts fell 
squarely on Scully and the Gunmen, while his 
job seemed to consist mostly of, well, 
shopping.

Her jaw was set but a smile crimped the corners 
of her mouth.  "Yeah.  We're going to do this."  

"Scully, I never imagined you'd go to such 
lengths just to get out of the car."  He smiled 
back at her and she opened her mouth to either 
tease or chide him, but never got the chance.  

"Shhhhh, Scully."  He turned up the radio until 
the background static started to buzz.  
"They're playing our song."

"We have a song?"

He nodded.  "Shhhh," his finger to his lips.

Thirty seconds later she was rolling her eyes.  
"Mulder!  It's 'Radar Love'."

He nodded, grinning that 'the-little-people-
told-me-to-build-the-telescope' grin.

She proceeded despite his musical/romantic 
mania.  "It's the musical equivalent of Ed 
Wood."

"It's still our song."  His smile turned from 
insane to the epitome of sweetness and light.

"Mulder are you ever concerned that a comet 
might strike the Earth and wipe out your CD 
collection?"  She only barely smiled as she 
said it.  

"Yes, Darling.  I stay up nights pondering a 
world where all that's left are cock roaches 
and that shit you listen to."

Again they chuckled quietly to themselves.  But 
for better or worse, most of the fear was gone.  

By the time they were unpacked and snuggling 
their son in Scully's apartment, Jean-Guy Mercy 
Jr. had already happily hopped into a car 
driven by Alex Krycek.

End 02/02

:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:

End Pater Familias II – Absentia

Next up: Pater Familias III – Insto


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